


Odi et Amo

by Pouxin



Category: Dead Poets Society (1989), Eagle of the Ninth Series - Rosemary Sutcliff, The Eagle | Eagle of the Ninth (2011)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-12
Updated: 2012-02-13
Packaged: 2017-10-31 08:12:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 57,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/341883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pouxin/pseuds/Pouxin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Esca and Marcus are at an all boys boarding school in the UK in the 1970s.  They hate each other, until they both become members of the newly formed Dead Poets' Society...  Adolescent ardor follows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Warnings** : Explicit sex; language; (some) homophobic hate speech; reference to self harm; some (brief) violence
> 
> **Acknowledgements** : The story was written for [this prompt](http://the-eagle-kink.livejournal.com/2834.html?thread=3758354#t3758354) by the lovely [](http://lalazee.livejournal.com/profile)[**lalazee**](http://lalazee.livejournal.com/) on the [the_eagle_kink](http://the-eagle-kink.livejournal.com/): Marcus and Esca both attend an all-boys school, and are a part of the Dead Poet's Society with several of their other friends. What starts out as simply reading poetry and 'sucking the marrow out of life' turns into accidentally locking eyes while reading poetry, turns into their writing their own poetry... secretly about each other. Turns into some very beautiful complications.
> 
> Thanks SO much to [](http://awarrington.livejournal.com/profile)[**awarrington**](http://awarrington.livejournal.com/) for being my LJ mentor. Thanks to [](http://tracy7307.livejournal.com/profile)[**tracy7307**](http://tracy7307.livejournal.com/) , [](http://coeurdesoleil.livejournal.com/profile)[**coeurdesoleil**](http://coeurdesoleil.livejournal.com/) and [](http://ladytiferet.livejournal.com/profile)[**ladytiferet**](http://ladytiferet.livejournal.com/) , for all their encouragement as this story progressed from a tiny newborn into a great beast of a thing. And of course thanks to all the lovely, lovely members of the eagle fandom for their feedback. More is always welcome, concrit is welcome! Help me be better, people ;-).
> 
> **Author’s note** : The form names are from the strange year naming system they had at Malvern Boys’ College, which was the private boys’ school near where I grew up (FYI, Foundation = Year 9; The Remove = Year 10; The Hundred = Year 11 : I know, right!). The various torture techniques the boys use on each other are from my dad’s joyous tales of fun and games at Reading School in the late 1960s. The poetry is all credited.
> 
> I found it really hard to place this fic in time, as the general behaviour and attitudes expressed are pretty 1950/60s-esque (in-keeping with the original DPS which was set in the school year ‘59-‘60), but I plotted myself into a corner where it needed to take place post-Vietnam, and, indeed, post Coppola’s _Apocalypse Now_ , but before the outlawing of caning in schools in Britain in1986, so I guess it’s around 1979 – so in the interests of being even vaguely internally consistent with regards to timelines, no poetry published after ’79 is used, even though I love much recent poetry lots and hard. Also, not all the poets cited would be dead in ’79, like the cheerful Mr Larkin our almost-Laureate for example (although they are now), but, meh.
> 
> NB There’s a bit of a mash-up of Greek and Roman mythology at some points, but in RL people do this all the time I find!

“ _I went out to the hazel wood / Because a fire was in my head_ ”  
\- W.B. Yeats

 _Esca_  
Marcus Aquila hates you. You’ve known this from Foundation. Scratch that, you’ve known since before you even arrived at the school, from the few terse tales your father told you about his schooldays, from the hard look in your father'a eyes and the firm set to his jaw, _from the rip in his ear that made him look like an old tom cat_. You’ve done your best to avoid Aquila. You’ve had a tough enough time as it is, what with your background. And maybe your attitude. Your face. Something that seems to piss a lot of the other boys off. The last thing you need is to give Aquila a chance to stick the boot in. You’ve had a few classes with him, and sometimes you can’t help the way your eyes have been drawn to the supercilious, plush bloom of his lips, the tense bunch of his chin, his close set eyes often frowning and angry. Have been drawn to that signet ring, _the ring_ , glinting proudly on his pinkie. You don’t know if it’s the same one, or if fathers get new ones cut for their sons in those sorts of families. But you know that Aquila Snr. died, so it very well could be the exact same one. Sometimes you imagine the ring slicing through the delicate gristle of your father’s ear. Sometimes you imagine it doing the same to yours. One time, just one time, you imagined that pouting, privileged mouth doing other things to you, but that thought was quickly banished. You don’t even want Aquila to have that power over you.

  
Mostly you’ve been successful in avoiding him entirely, and, to be fair, he’s never courted any trouble with you. Not directly. You’ve seen him around though, when the other boys have been teasing you, or worse, closing in like a pack of hounds around a cornered fox, the smell of their excitement, hot, sweaty, sharp and savage. He has always been on the fringe of things, passing by, only ever watching. You’ve looked at him through narrowed eyes. _Why don’t you just join in_ , you think, _you obviously want to. Coward_. But he never has. There was one time in The Remove when you were experiencing a particularly vicious beating at the hands of Aquila’s mate Placidus and some of his other rugby cronies and Aquila _had_ joined in. But not in the beating. You were already down on the ground, curled in on yourself, and trying to ride out the worst of it. Keep your head covered, keep your belly covered. You know the drill. It was unusual for it to be this bad, usually they contented themselves with twisting your arm behind your back until your tricep stood out and taking turns to punch it until your arm went numb, and later black with bruises. Or other, more cerebral tortures – stealing your tuck, hiding porn under your mattress so the housemaster would find it and cane you, refusing to get off the phone in time for you to take your allocated slot for that week, leaving you a whole fortnight without hearing your sister’s voice. Actually, that was the worst punishment of them all, not that you’d ever let them know it. But you’d done something in particular to anger them that day, and they had you down on the ground, and they had their rugby boots on. Studs like wolves’ teeth.

“Hey!” Aquila had called out, “Hey!” He’d come closer, you could see his feet, also in their rugby boots, from your defensive hedgehog curl on the ground. “What are you doing? Steven? _Jesus_.”

“Just teaching the little shit a lesson.” That was Placidus’ voice, high, nasal, entitled, the clipped lilt of his vowels, plumy and dense.

“By _kicking_ him? Five on one?”

The boots had stopped. Aquila was their _captain_ after all. But you stayed curled, wary, watchful. You’d learnt well by then.

“Well….” You didn’t know if it was your imagination, or if Placidus had actually sounded sheepish. Then another voice, Hieron’s it sounded like.

“Sorry Marcus. I did realise MacCuntoval was one of your _pet favourites_.”  
You had bristled further at that, clenching your ribs in on themselves harder still. You are Aquila’s pet nothing, and you never will be.

“He’s not one of my favourites, Claude,” Aquila had said, low and cold, and you’d almost shivered at the sudden quiet menace in his tone, “I just don’t like an unfair fight. I would have thought you, of all people, would feel the same.” Hieron had muttered something unintelligible under his breath, but you could see the boots retreating from your vantage point twisted on the damp grass. Good hounds, listening to their master’s voice. Plus Aquila had almost half a foot on them.

“Are you OK?” and Aquila’s strong, brown hand had been reaching down to help you up. You wouldn’t take it. You’d rather die than take his hand.

“Fine,” you’d managed, trying not to gasp with the pain that it sent shooting down to your diaphragm to even form the words. You had struggled to your feet, using all your energy to keep your face steady, impassive, you would not wince. Aquila’s eyes were very green, you noticed. Not brown, like you’d thought, like his colouring might suggest, but green. They had looked…sad.

“Are you…sure?”

“Yes.” It had been on the tip of your tongue, even then, to thank him, but then you remembered your father’s eyes, his chin, his ear, and you bit it back hard, concentrating on the acrid tang of blood flowing from your split lip instead.

“You shouldn’t let them get to you like that. You should fight back…run away….something. I’ve seen you on the rugby pitch. You’re fast. You’re scrappy. You’re good.”

“I don’t _let_ them do anything,” you had spat, not even trying to reign in the venom in your tone. “I’m not going to fight them. I’m not going to run from them. I won’t be their entertainment. They can do what the fuck they like.” And then you had actually spat, hard, on the grass, watching the pinkish saliva land near Aquila’s feet.

Aquila had looked at you very calmly then, still, quiet in himself, and for a moment it was like he was truly seeing you, seeing into the very iron in your soul. But you were young back then, you were fanciful. He was merely trying to get the measure of you, you suppose, to learn best how to hurt you.

Since then he’s barely spoken two words to you. But you watch him, wary. You know he hates you. You know he must be biding his time, sensing your vulnerabilities, waiting to strike. And so you hate him back.

 

_Marcus_

Esca MacCunoval hates you. You’ve known this since Foundation. You’ve never known why. You assume it’s the same reason he hates all the boys at the Academy, because you’re rich, because you’re privileged, because he assumes you have a family, a family who loves you. Because a lot of the other boys have always behaved towards him with contempt, because he’s a scholarship boy, because he has no parents and no money, because he came from the orphanage, because they were aware of who his father had been. But it pisses you off he has never given you the benefit of the doubt, has always treated you as though you are just like them. You’re not like them. You also know what it’s like to be different, to be found wanting, to be excluded, to live without any succour, any comfort, any love. It angers you, his being so quick to dismiss you, but you’ve nevertheless always had a sort of grudging respect for him. Every year at Founder’s Day since you can remember he’s been awarded the Year Prize, never anyone there in the audience to see him receive it. And he has always accepted it in the same way, proud but not arrogant, back straight but easy, the grace and posture of a natural athlete despite his small stature. The other boys clap politely, either disinterested or deliberately, insultingly unenthusiastic, but you have always clapped the loudest you can. You want to wire to him, somehow, that you understand. But communication has never been your strong point, so telepathy is definitely out.

There was one time, in the Remove, that a bunch of the other guys – Steven, Claude, Quinton – had been really laying into him, with a calculated violence that made you uneasy, even in the casual brutality that existed at the Academy, masking itself as discipline, masking itself as boyish rough housing, as camaraderie. You’d called them off. You’d been prepared to fight them if you had to, feeling the thick knobs of your knuckles clench and flex, feeling your heart speed up. Despite your leg, you’re strong, and tall, you know you could give them a run for their money before they beat you. But MacCunoval hadn’t cared. He’d ignored your hand when you’d tried to help him up, then he’d actually spat at your feet. Not that you were expecting gratitude, but at least acceptance, something. There’s something feral about him, his viper’s mouth, his wolf’s eyes, and maybe you’d do best to remember that. When someone hates you with that much vehemence, the safest thing is always to hate them back.

 

_Esca_

It’s different in sixth form. In the first three years of school, popularity was largely determined by performance on the sports’ field, or by ability to subtly mock the teachers during lessons while avoiding the slipper, or else to acquire contraband without the prefects noticing. Your cleverness was just another reason for the others to pick on you, it was yet another thing that marked you as different, as not normal. But suddenly, in sixth form, the ground has shifted. Being clever is no longer something to be ashamed of, but something which the others covet and strive for. They no longer want to punish you for your quick tongue and sharp mind, instead they just want it for themselves. Some of them hesitantly have formed what might pass as a friendship with you, perhaps hoping some of your cleverness might rub off on them. After all, who doesn’t want to be lab partners with the brightest boy in the class now that these grades will dictate university places.

Of these tentative friendships – although always you are wary of them, never would you let them see anything about you that is secret, that is vulnerable, that is sad – you learnt _that_ on the first night you spent here, lying in the narrow grey cot that felt more like a coffin than a bed and staring up at the ceiling, listening to one of the other boys – you think it was Guernsey – crying. You reached out across the narrow gap between the beds and placed your hand gently on his hunched shoulder. “It’s OK,” you whispered, “you’ll miss them less with time.”

“And how would you know?” Guernsey had sobbed quietly.

“’Cause I lost both my parents years ago,” you replied, only for someone else to snigger in the darkness.

“Careless!”

And then another voice, Hilary’s you think, “Oh, so _you’re_ the charity case our fathers are having to pay extra fees for. Scrounging little runt.”

And Placidus, the most hated voice of all: “MacRuntoval!”

Then Hieron: “MacCuntoval!”

Since then you can count on the fingers of one hand the amount of times anyone except the teaching or house staff has used your real name. And even less times have you told anyone anything about you, anything _real_ , anything at all.

But of these new fledgling friendships since the beginning of the sixth form, your favourite is that with Liathan Prince. Liathan is like you, smart like you, smart-mouthed like you. Perhaps even more so, he is a natural antagonist, an _agent provocateur_ , the proud recipient of more canings than any other boy in the year. But unlike you he’s rich, or rather his father is, he’s perhaps the richest boy here, and that’s saying something. And it’s Old Money too. The type these boys respect. And fear. So for that reason they have always left Liathan alone. However, whist his father may be pure Establishment, his mother is some sort of French film star. There was one time, in The Hundred, that some of the boys had found a black and white poster of her, topless, pouting for the camera, and pinned it up in the dormitory above Liathan’s bed, with _la grande putain_ scrawled above it in lipstick. You have no idea where they got the lipstick from. Liathan hadn’t said anything, but it’s the only time you’ve seen him show any real emotion, his eyes went almost black, his lips pursing to a thin, pale line in his dark face. He was convinced that Placidus was responsible, and the two have been locked in a battle of wills ever since, with Liathan waging an almost guerrilla war against Placidus’ fragile hold over the year. Placidus is arguably the most popular boy, after perhaps Marcus Aquila. But Aquila doesn’t _try_ to be popular. And Liathan has correctly gauged Placidus’ deepest weakness, his overwhelming desire to be popular, to be powerful, perhaps even to be _liked_ (not that you would ever feel any genuine sympathy for Placidus, who is mealy mouthed and cruel). Since that day Liathan has taken every opportunity to belittle and embarrass him, from stealing his clothes after showers (and paying off all the first years in toffees, jam and cigarettes to be notably absent in terms of fetching his towel) leaving him to walk naked through the corridor, to forging a letter from his father instructing he is to drop rugby practice in favour of Ancient Greek classes. Placidus is a difficult enemy to have, what with his brother a prefect in the Upper Sixth, and one with a penchant for hauling younger boys before the Prefects Meetings for the slightest misdemeanour, but Liathan is undeterred; and for that you feel a fierce sort of empathy with him, that is almost like love.

So you’ve become friends. _Almost_. He even had you to stay at his house over the holidays. “We can’t have you going back to the orphanage for Christmas can we, old boy?” he uses the term mockingly, sometimes you think he has never taken anything seriously in his life. Except that thing with his mother. “It’s just too Dickensian for words.” You got to meet his infamous _Maman_ then, she of the fox fur stoles, the dark sloe eyes and berry bright mouth. She had kissed you full on the lips when she greeted you, and then she had kissed Liathan extravagantly, pulling him to her gleaming moony bosom, “ _mon petit prince, mon chere, mon amor_ ,” peppering kisses over his cheeks, his forehead, his mouth. It made you ache for your own mother, her cool hands on your forehead when you were sick, her smell like lemons and baking bread, her shy smile. You found it difficult being around Liathan’s family, his glamourous, tactile mother; his slightly buffoonish father with his loud guffaws of sudden laughter; his raucous ragtag collection of brothers. But the house was so big, it wasn’t like you needed to spend much time with each other. You spent most of your days in their huge, oak panelled library, whiling away the hours reading first editions of Defoe and Forster, beautiful hand bound copies of Shelley, a collection of Matthew Arnold poetry, signed by the author. It was the happiest Christmas you can remember in a long time. And, the following Spring Term, it’s from Liathan that you first hear about The Dead Poets’ Society.

 

_Marcus_

It’s different in sixth form. For the first few years you kind of enjoyed the Academy. After missing 18 months of prep school following the accident, then being put back a year, and having to start back with the leg brace still on, clanking and awkward, the muscle underneath it still misshapen and wasted compared to your other, strong, thick thigh; having to endure the cruel sideways stares of the boys who had been in the year below and were now your equals; after that the Academy had felt like a fresh start. You can still remember the first day back at prep school after the accident and your long recuperation vividly, like the slice of a bright technicolour blade through your heart, making your eyes prickle and throat feel tight. Someone had declined the Latin _retardare_ into your desk with a compass point, and underneath that another hand had engraved _tardipes_. As you manoeuvred yourself clumsily into your seat, the other boys watched you read it, and then started sniggering.

“I bet he doesn’t even know why it’s funny,” you heard one of them stage-whisper. Then Sam Tradui, who’d used to play junior sevens with you, who’d used to look at you with admiration and respect, who’d used to offer to clean your boots after practice; back when you were still strong, back when you were in the year above him and worthy of his respect; Sam Tradui had twisted round in his seat so he was facing you, and asked: “Do you Aquila? Do you know why it’s funny?” You hadn’t known which was worse, to say nothing and have them think you couldn’t understand, or to reply and become complicit in their cruelty. You could feel their eyes on you, dark and mean, waiting, baiting.

“It’s funny because it’s a pun. It means I’m stupid…and at the same time it means I’m…lame.” Even as you say it you know you’ve made the wrong choice, as several of the boys break into peals of faux-hysterical laughter. Sam Tradui regards you, his eyes black with delight.

“So you admit that you’re a retard cripple?”

You hadn’t known what to say to that, your tongue felt suddenly thick in your mouth, and you could feel the desperate sting of tears start, somewhere far back behind your eyes, and you had dug the fingernails of your hand, sharp, into the scar tissue on your leg to distract yourself from your thoughts, because above all other things _you must not cry_.

For the rest of prep school, that’s what all the boys had called you. “Oh look, it’s ‘tardy,” someone would always say when you entered the common room, often right in front of the teachers who would do nothing, because it had the other innocuous meaning, it was what you got on your House points board for being late to class or to church, a ‘tardy’. But you knew what it really meant. _Retard cripple_.

But by the time you’d started at the Academy you’d grown strong again, and the brace was off, and you were back playing rugby, and nights spent under the blankets with a torch, frantically reading _The Iliad_ and Shakespeare and _La Gloire de Mon Père_ (the irony of the title had not been lost of you) had paid off and meant that you’d been put back into the right year, your year. Not that it was all plan sailing. Steven Placidus was a bit of an idiot, and never missed an opportunity to make some snide reference to your father, and there was Esca MacCunoval who always looked at you like you’d personally put his family to the stake, but over all it was nothing you couldn’t handle, you could keep up in class, you made rugby captain, and you had _friends_ , Lucas Dacian and John ‘Guernsey’ Hunter.

But sixth form feels different. Everything feels quicker, harder, more intricate. You feel that old panic come washing back over you in class when you don’t understand something, like your brain is too blunt an instrument for such fine thinking. The more you panic the worse it gets, making it hard for you to concentrate over the tightness in your chest and the ringing in your ears. As if he can smell your growing weakness, Steven closes in around you, wary but excited, sensing his moment. You’re reading Conrad’s _Heart of Darkness_ in English Literature, and after the first lesson he starts calling you Colonel Kurtz (Apocalypse Now had come out the previous summer) in front of the rest of the rugby team. _Your father. You feel the shadow of him over you at all times, his dark legacy, his cool breath on the back of your neck_. During team huddles, when you’re outlining the plan for the rest of the game, he’s all: ‘Yes Colonel, No Colonel’. The other boys laugh. One time he says, “Maybe someone else should outline our game plan next time. After all, we don’t entirely know where _Aquila_ might lead us. Isn’t that right, Aquila?”

“Shut it, Placidus,” says Lucas mildly.

“Yeah. Although sometimes our rugby games _do_ feel like suicide missions,” says Quinton, and you don’t even think he’s trying to be cruel and somehow that is almost the worst of all. You know why Steven’s doing it, you know he’s just itching to take the captaincy off you, and the worst thing is, he well might. Your leg has being giving you a lot of pain recently, feeling wound-up and tight, sending hot stabs of agony into the core of you, your bones, after each practice. You’ve grown a lot recently, and you can only imagine the speed of it has put extra strain on the damaged muscle. It niggles and bites at you all night, as you lie stiff in your bed listening to Lucas’ snores, and in the morning you feel like you haven’t slept at all, leaving you dull and sluggish in class. And then the panic comes again, suffocating, pouring into your open nose and ears; and then your leg starts, just a hum of pain at first, but then by evening it’s a symphony, the twang of the strings of your tendons, the pounding of the percussion of your blood along the ruptured veins. And so it continues.

You notice Esca MacCunoval and Liathan Prince have become firm friends over the Christmas holidays. For some reason, watching them together, laughing and whispering to each other in the common room, makes you feel like how you feel in class, something tight and cramping across your chest that you can’t control. You don’t know why you would care. Prince is alright, but MacCunoval still looks at you with utter scorn and hatred, like you’ve personally wounded him in some way. It’s a look that makes you feel ashamed even though you haven’t done anything, and you hate him for having that power over you. It’s like his eyes can see into the secret heart of you, can see that however much you try to be good you will always be full of dark things, of things that want and wheedle and lie and cheat and change mistakes. It is a look that says he has the measure of you and he has found you wanting. It makes your blood hot, and anger shoot over you, spinning and catherine-wheeling bright sparks of indignant rage.

But then there’s that other feeling you have around MacCunoval, even more inexplicable, like he’s somehow your brother, like there is something about you which is the same, which fits. You find yourself more and more fascinated by him, by the proud jut of his jaw and the flinty iron of his eyes, which can soften to grey mist and then back to spear points just as quickly. Although it’s a poisonous kind of fascination, it makes you feel sick with it, exhilarated, sick, exhilarated. _Esca MacCunoval_.

You watch him during cross country, which you are supervising (the Rugby Master wants you to rest up your leg in preparation for Sunday’s game). His cheeks are bright pink from the cold February air, his eyes alight, a cool grey blaze, smoke and sparks. When did he get so strong? You remember him being slight as well as short, but as you watch the shifting ropes of muscle in his calves, the high rolling tightness of his ass under his rugby shorts, you realise he is surprisingly muscular, angular and sleek like a hunting cat, or a stag.

Suddenly you notice that Prince has come to stand by you at the side of the sports pavilion, and is watching you, askance, one eyebrow raised.

“Fast, isn’t he?”

“What?” You feel shocked and shamed to be caught looking so squarely, the ghastly thrill of it running down your spine and bunching in your guts. For some reason it reminds you of the time in the Hundred you got back early from your Uncle’s after an Exeat weekend and decided to make the most of the empty dormitory. You had dug out Claude’s stash of porn from the loose panel next to the fire escape, and looked at the hazy golden centrefolds, at the full, round globes of their breasts, the sweet pointy pouts of their nipples, the tawny fur between their legs. And when that didn’t work you… But then a gaggle of the boys had exploded into the dormitory and to Quintons’s delighted cry of: “Aquila’s having a wank!” had proceeded to try and snatch the bed sheets away from you, laughing hysterically and brandishing the magazine aloft making kissy noises, “Oh Marcus! You’re so _big_!” in girlish singsong, practically pissing themselves, while your ears burned red with embarrassment. You don’t know why this moment would remind you of that one, but it does. You say nothing else, feeling your bloody ears start up again, glowing like beacons.

“The way he moves… it’s so graceful isn’t it? Almost like a girl. But…better….stronger,” Prince is looking at you closely, half amused, half predatory, and you have no idea what to say.

“Ha!” you bark, brusque, awkward. “That’s very, um, poetic.”

“Well,” and here Prince looks at MacCunoval again, eyes inscrutable. “What can I say? I enjoy poetry.”

You feel panicked still, hot and confused, blood pounding in your head, so you just say the first thing you think of, anything.

“Me too.”

“Really?” Prince has raised his eyebrow again, mocking, maddening.

“Yes. Actually, I love poetry, as it happens,” you retort shortly, and then, to prove your point you add. “Eye, gazelle, delicate wanderer / Drinker of horizon's fluid line / Ear that suspends on a chord / The spirit drinking timelessness / Touch, love, all senses.” You chose those lines because they were in your head, because they are about the act of living, living through arts, lines about poetry, but also because MacCunoval runs like a deer, fleet, delicate, elegant, proud, _hunted_.  
Prince looks surprised, and you feel a momentary flare of satisfaction, of having proved yourself – rare these days. “Ah,” he says, “Spender. I think continually of those who were truly great…/ The names of those who in their lives fought for life / Who wore at their hearts the fire's centre / Born of the sun they travelled a short while towards the sun / And left the vivid air signed with their honour.”

For a minute you think it’s some oblique reference to your father, and you feel the slow thump of your anger start up again, but when you look at Prince he is still looking at MacCunoval, with a kind of proud reverence, and you realise the lines could be just as applicable, in fact far more applicable, to MacCunoval’s father ( _who in their lives fought for life_ ). No matter what the other boys might say about him, no matter how much it might go against the code of the Academy, about everything they’re taught about the honour of military service, there’s no doubt that MacCunoval Snr. did that, that he fought for life, for peace. So you smile.

“Yes, exactly.” And it’s from Prince that you then first hear about The Dead Poets’ Society.

 

_Esca_

“Macs! Maccers!” it’s an urgent whisper, coupled with a gentle shaking of your shoulder, persistently nosing against the edges of your dream.

“Unfgng?” you manage.

“Wake up! It’s time.”

You open one eye blearily. What were you dreaming? Something about eagles taking flight, the cloudy skies of home, wet grass, someone’s hands on you in the firelight, warmth, so much warmth. Then you make out Liathan’s dark face through the gloom and are suddenly alert. “Shhhhh,” Liathan adds, looking over meaningfully at the bundled form of your roommate under his covers. You’re fully dressed under the blankets, and you slide out, quietly slipping on your boots and leaving them unlaced. You follow Liathan down the dark narrow backstairs, taking care to use the banister to swing on your arms over the step that always creaks. Cub, the House dog, raises an inquisitive head at the kitchen door, ears twitching upright and a low rumble starting in his throat like faraway thunder, but Liathan throws him a handful of biscuit fragments from tea and he falls silent, munching gratefully as you slip out the kitchen door. Then you’re running over the lawns and down towards the woods where you do cross-country training, towards the lake on the edge of the school grounds, and Liathan’s torch is creating crazy zig zags of light in front of you, dancing like fireflies, like a phoenix. You feel your heart hammering with more than just the sudden exercise and the frigid night air; with the thrill of the illicit, and something more, something you don’t want to admit to yourself you care about; with the joy of belonging. You slow down once you hit the trees, shielded now from the House and the ever watchful eye of Matron.

“This way, come on.”

You follow Liathan to the shores of the lake, and then scramble halfway down the bank to a sudden rocky outcrop. You can smell woodsmoke and the sweet lick of burning sugar, see uneven light flickering from inside it, hear the low murmuring of boys’ voices. Then you step inside the cave, breathing in the dank, loamy air, and almost stumble round the corner into an unexpected cavern, small but high, with a long domed ceiling open to the cold, distant stars. A log fire is crackling in the middle, and next to it is a pile of old pots and pans, rusty with age. The walls are damp, and covered in crude chalk graffiti, slang and sketchings and a surprisingly anatomical drawing of a naked woman. You cannot believe you have been at the Academy almost four years and have not known this place existed. It feels like somewhere faraway, outside of time. It feels almost…magic. Several boys are already clustered around the edges of the cave, among them Placidus, and you feel a sharp jab of disappointment, of impotent irritation, before you notice, even more surprisingly, Marcus Aquila. You blink at him in consternation. Why is he even _here_? He _can’t_ have any interest in poetry (even if he has the face for it). You feel your fists bunch angrily in your pockets, even as your eyes dwell on the succulent plumpness of his lower lip.

“Ah, if it isn’t _le dauphin_ and his petit bum boy,” Placidus remarks snidely.

“Greetings,” Liathan says brightly, “I’m impressed with your grasp of the French language, Pladickus, I must say. But then I’m impressed you can speak and walk at the same time without choking on your own tongue, never mind speak French.”

Placidus sucks in his cheeks and sneers. “I’m cleverer than you, Prince”.

“Indeed ! Si votre bite était aussi gros que votre tête, puis les bizuths serait vraiment en difficulté. ”

And you laugh at that, safe in the knowledge that Liathan has your back, and that Placidus won’t understand what he said anyway. Placidus’ face narrows in concentration as he struggles to translate the French.

“Are you _implying_ ,” he asks acidly, “that I’m a _fag_?”

Oh, relax,” and Liathan sprawls down on the rock next to him, letting the heavy leather-bound book he’s been carrying drop into his lap. “We’re all fags here, darling,” Liathan drawls, making his voice go accented and breathy, and laying a languorous hand over Placidus’ thigh. Most of the boys laugh, but Aquila looks uncomfortable, shifting uneasily on the upturned pot he is sitting on. Of course _he_ would look uncomfortable, perfect Marcus Aquila and his perfect, straight-as-an-arrow little life, with his perfect future all mapped out in front of him, his perfect wife, his perfect house, his perfect children. But even as you feel the venom for him souring in your heart you can imagine all too readily laying _you_ r hand upon the strong bulk of _his_ thigh, how those thick muscles would feel under your fingers, warm and solid. Before you can stop yourself you’re speaking to him.

“You?” you ask archly, “ _You’re_ interested in poetry?”

Aquila looks up, hopeful, and when he sees the question _is_ addressed to him he looks at you, almost seeming pleased, and smiles, hesitant, soft.

“Yeah,” he says, and clears his throat. “Yeah. Really interested.”

“Well, what do you know?” you say, “You learn a knew thing every day. Someone with the looks and grace of an 18th century pig farmer can be interested in poetry.” The soft moss of Marcus’ eyes darkens with hurt, and then they slam shut, going unreadable in the flickering of the firelight, closed and unfeeling.

“I guess you do,” he says quietly. You feel a sharp stab of shame rise up through your chest, this is one thing you promised yourself you would never be: spiteful. Sometimes you worry this school has made you just like them, hard like them, cruel like them. Not that Aquila deserves… Not that Aquila… You stare at him in consternation. Wait – Aquila was _hurt_? By _you_?

“Now, now, ladies,” Liathan chides. “If this is going to work, we all need to agree to be nice with each other. At least inside the confines of the cave. Now can we agree to that? I realise that includes me, Placidus,” he says, raising a pre-emptive hand towards Placidus’ opening mouth. There is a general murmur of assent, and then Doug Cheef passes round the marshmallows he has been toasting, while Liathan uses the fire to light a cigarette. He has a seemingly endless supply of them, the long thin French ones that smell like cloves, however many the House Master confiscates, more appear. Taking a flamboyant drag he stands upright, opening the heavy book he has been carrying.

“I hereby reconvene the Dead Poets’ Society,” he announces grandly, to whoops and claps from the rest of the boys. “Colloway Academy chapter. The meetings will be conducted by myself and the other new initiates now present. I'll now read the traditional opening message by society member Henry David Thoreau. _‘I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life_.’”

“I’ll second that,” calls Hieron.

“’ _To put to rout all that was not life, and not, when I had come to die, discover that I had not lived,_ ’” Liathan continues. And he is beautiful and fierce in the firelight, and the boys are all staring at him, rapt, but still you cannot help your eyes being drawn, reluctant and heavy, away from Liathan towards Marcus Aquila. It’s as if he is true iron ore to the magnet of your gaze. He looks impossibly noble in the flickering gloom. Sometimes he _does_ have the look of a farm boy, you know how to make your insults find their mark, eyes too close together, ears sticking out, oversized. But now he looks serious, proud… sensuous. The burnt gold of his skin. The shifting green and amber of his eyes. The full lushness of his mouth. And that great, long body, all power and muscle, so vibrant and fluid, so much controlled strength just waiting to be harnessed and released, like a stallion. You look away quickly. You do not want to look at Marcus Aquila. You not want… You want… You remind yourself of all the cruel things these boys have done, you remember Aquila’s eyes on you, cool and disinterested, all the times you were beaten and humiliated and scorned. You remember _Aquila’s large tanned hand reaching down to help you up from the wet grass, the soft timbre of his voice, are you OK?_

Doug is reading: _“Look in your heart and see / their lies an answer / though the heart like a clever / Conjurer or Dancer / Deceive you with many a / curious sleight / and motives like stowaways / are found too late.”_

No. You remember then the ring on his finger, on his father’s finger, your father’s torn ear. All the things his father must have told him about your father, _you_. You turn your heart.

Then it’s Aquila’s turn to read. He stands nervously, slightly stooped in the sloping belly of the cave.

_“I am a man now._  
Pass your hand over my brow.  
You can feel the place where the brains grow.” 

Placidus sniggers, but Aquila ignores him and reads on regardless.

_“I am like a tree,_  
From my top boughs I can see  
The footprints that led up to me. 

_There is blood in my veins_  
That has run clear of the stain  
Contracted in so many loins. 

_Why, then, are my hands red_  
With the blood of so many dead?  
Is this where I was misled?” 

You find yourself almost hypnotised by the firm yet lilting voice, the concentration in the dreamy eyes, the shadows of nightmares.

_“Why are my hands this way_  
That they will not do as I say?  
Does no God hear when I pray? 

_I have nowhere to go_  
The swift satellites show  
The clock of my whole being is slow, 

_It is too late to start_  
For destinations not of the heart.  
I must stay here with my hurt.” 

He sits quickly, as the rest of the boys clap and smile. You feel a strange tightness across your forehead, an uncurling in your stomach which is not entirely unpleasant. Marcus Aquila. _I must stay here with my hurt_. You preferred him when he was simple, pretty but basic, you preferred him when he was easy to hate.

 

_Marcus_

You feel relaxed, happy. You bend your head back against the damp wall, and stare up the narrow funnel towards the stars. You remember your father teaching you the constellations as a boy, his finger tracing their patterns as you lay on your backs in the summer grass. Andromeda, Ursa Major, Aquarius, Bootes, Orion, and then the Aquila constellation, the eagle, _their stars_. You can hear the deep rumble of your father’s voice. “These are our stars, Marcus. Aquila was the divine bird of Zeus and he served him so faithfully in battle that Zeus placed him among the stars to eternally soar through the sky.” It is a good memory, a rare happy one, and you allow it to settle in your mind. The other boys are laughing and joking around you, the air is sweet with toasted marshmallows. You feel your eyes start to droop with sleep.

Then your heart stumbles into your mouth as Esca MacCunoval comes into the cave. Fire gleam on bronze hair, woodsmoke eyes, skin like stars. He’s with Prince, of course. Steven starts up with his usual acid tongued teasing, and you keep sneaking tiny little glimpses of MacCunoval, snatches of his face, his neck, that surprisingly hard body, as he sits down on the rocky ledge across from you.

“We’re all fags here, darling,” Prince jokes in response to something Steven has said, and you look away from MacCunoval quickly, down at the ground, ears burning. You’re not a fag. It’s not like you… _fancy_ MacCunoval or anything, you just…you’re just curious about him, you just wish he didn’t hate you.

“You?” MacCunoval is saying, “ _You’re_ interested in poetry?” You look up from where you’ve been studying your feet and see he is talking to you, and you feel a hot bloom of delight in your chest to have those eyes turned on you, smoky, intense.

“Yeah,” you mumble, and then your clear your throat, trying for a tone that’s more masculine, assured. “Yeah. Really interested.” You wish you could say something else, some poetry maybe, something to make MacCunoval give you the same surprised, impressed look Prince gave you by the sports pavilion, but you can’t think of anything that wouldn’t make you look stupid or like a show-off in front of all the others.

“Well, what do you know?” MacCunoval replies, brittle, cruel, “You learn a new thing every day. Someone with the looks and grace of an 18th century pig farmer can be interested in poetry.”

The hope in your chest withers and is replaced by that old prickle of fear _please don’t let this be like prep school again_ , and then quickly rage floods in through the little crack that joy had made in the hull of your heart. You don’t know why you’re disappointed, why you always want MacCunoval to be different from all the others, better. He isn’t. He’s vicious and mean, just like Steven, he searches for your weakness and then bites at it, jaws of spite, fox-haired and savage.

“I guess you do,” you reply quietly. You have no desire to get in a fight with MacCunoval. It’s hardly even like he needs taking down a peg or too, not with the workovers Steven and Claude and Quinton still give him. You make yourself stop thinking about MacCunoval and concentrate on the pleasing warmth of the fire, the sweet burnt caramel of Cheef’s marshmallows on your tongue, the pleasure of the rhythms and patterns of the poetry. Steven stands up and announces with typical sneering arrogance: " _I have nothing to say and I am saying it and that is poetry_." The others laugh and for a moment you are worried he is going to ruin the evening with his mockery, _why did you even bother to come?_ you think angrily, but then he goes on:

_“I have to say poetry and is that nothing and am I saying it_  
I am and I have poetry to say and is that nothing saying it  
I am nothing and I have poetry to say and that is saying it  
I that am saying poetry have nothing and it is I and to say  
And I say that I am to have poetry and saying it is nothing  
I am poetry and nothing and saying it is to say that I have  
To have nothing is poetry and I am saying that and I say it  
Poetry is saying I have nothing and I am to say that and it  
Saying nothing I am poetry and I have to say that and it is  
It is and I am and I have poetry saying say that to nothing  
It is saying poetry to nothing and I say I have and am that  
Poetry is saying I have it and I am nothing and to say that  
And that nothing is poetry I am saying and I have to say it  
Saying poetry is nothing and to that I say I am and have it” 

And the others are laughing and clapping to the marching percussion of the words, and you feel happy and relaxed and the pain in your leg is just a distant memory. Next is Prince. He’s smoking one of his affected French cigarettes and MacCunoval is looking at him like he’s some sort of deity. You feel the look like burning across your chest. “In honour of the general ethos of Dead Poets’ Society, I give you, gentlemen, Society Member Ezra Pound: _And the days are not full enough / And the nights are not full enough / And life slips by like a field mouse / Not shaking the grass._ ” Your mind races alongside the words, and then catches them, holds them to it, feels them slotting into place. That there are other people who understand, the pressure, the desire to live, the legacy of your father, this feeling you have like bursting, the need to prove yourself, to mean something, to undo the damage of your father’s name, _to shake the grass_. You wonder why it can’t be like this in class, this easy comprehension and empathy, why your mind sometimes seizes up like a rusty trap and will not spring. “And something a little more cheery, the lovely _Alba_ ,” Prince is saying, “ _As cool as the pale wet leaves / of lily-of-the-valley / She lay beside me in the dawn._ ”

“Mmmmm,” says Claude appreciatively, and mimes an hourglass shape with his hands. Again, you feel your eyes drawn helplessly to MacCunoval, to the cool paleness of the skin of his neck and collarbone, you imagine that skin soft, like petals, you imagine that skin wet, from exertion, like it must have been after his run the day you were watching him, you imagine the feel of his wet skin, the smell of it, how it would taste against your tongue. _Fuck. What are you thinking?_ It’s just the lateness, you think, and the poetry, and the strangeness of the evening, outside of time. Boys who normally hate each other sharing and being gentle. It is playing tricks with your mind. Although not all gentle – _looks and grace of a pig farmer_. It makes you feel angry, and then sad, in a way you can’t explain. _You of all people_ , you think looking at MacCunoval out of the corner of your eyes, _I wish you of all people hadn’t said that. Didn’t think that._

Lucas is speaking now: _“Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the wind longs to play with your hair,_ ” and he wiggles his white toes expansively, boots discarded on the floor, as Quinton chimes in: _“World is crazier and more of it than we think / Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion / A tangerine and spit the pips and feel / The drunkenness of things being various,”_ and at this point he dramatically pulls a quarter bottle of whiskey from his jacket pocket. Even Prince looks impressed. “We’ll stash this for next time,” he says with a wink.

And then it’s MacCunoval’s turn to read. He stands ramrod straight, his fierce face in and out of shadow in the firelight, and he looks like a warrior preparing to fight. You feel yourself having unconsciously gripped the sides of the upturned pot you’re sitting on as he went to stand, and you make your fingers uncurl. You do not care about MacCunoval, what poetry he has chosen, what the other boys think. You care for him as little as he so obviously cares for you. You will this to be true.

_“Out of the night that covers me,_  
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,  
I thank whatever gods may be  
For my unconquerable soul. 

_In the fell clutch of circumstance_  
I have not winced nor cried aloud.  
Under the bludgeonings of chance  
My head is bloody, but unbowed.” 

You notice Steven is suddenly looking at the edge of the fire instead of MacCunoval, and there is a high spot of colour in his cheeks – you can only imagine what images MacCunoval’s words are bringing up for him, the various tortures he and the others have designed for MacCunoval over the years. You sometimes think you should have done more, but what could you do? It’s just the way the Academy is. And it’s not like MacCunoval cares either way, he always looks as you with such loathing.

_“Beyond this place of wrath and tears_  
Looms but the Horror of the shade,  
And yet the menace of the years  
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid. 

_It matters not how strait the gate,_  
How charged with punishments the scroll.  
I am the master of my fate:  
I am the captain of my soul.” 

The other boys clap enthusiastically, and MacCunoval allows himself a rare flush of pleasure, a small smile, as he retakes his seat. You try not to dwell on how perfect that poem is for him, his solemn face at Founder’s Day as he accepts the Year Prize year on year with the same quiet pride despite the lacklustre applause, that time he wouldn’t take your hand after the others were beating him round the back of the rugby pitch, _head bloody but unbowed_.

Claude stands, “I am going to dedicate this last part of the evening to a subject close to all our hearts: our dear parents. Who love us so much they cannot bring themselves to live with us.” There are a few laughs at that, and Claude’s tone is joking, but it is the universal truth, the one they never speak of, the reason the few Day Boys at the Academy get an even worse time of it than MacCunoval. At least you don’t have that to deal with, your parents having chosen to send you away. Although you know your father would have sent you here anyway. But maybe your mother… you try not to think of your mother, of the wrench of her going, you try just to breathe. “Needless to say, I doubt our Beloved Academy will be putting this on the A-Level syllabus anytime soon: This be the verse. _They fuck you up, your mum and dad,_ ” immediately there is raucous cheering, and Claude pauses before he continues. _“They may not mean to, but they do / They fill you with the faults they had /And add some extra, just for you.”_

_“But they were fucked up in their turn_  
By fools in old-style hats and coats,  
Who half the time were soppy-stern  
And half at one another's throats. 

_Man hands on misery to man._  
It deepens like a coastal shelf.  
Get out as early as you can,  
And don't have any kids yourself.” 

Claude bows theatrically and sits back down, as Guernsey stands for his reading. “If you want poetry about _real_ parental fuckery, lads, then you need to turn to the late, utterly demented, Miss Sylvia Plath.” Steven and Quinton boo loudly.

“I hope you’re not going to ruin the evening Guernsey with some hysterical bint ranting about sticking her head in the oven,” Steven says.

“Yeah, if she’d put some pies in it instead, maybe her husband wouldn’t have left her.”

Guernsey silences them with a dramatic raising of his arms. “ _Not God but a swastika_ ,” he begins loudly, and the others fall silent. “ _So black no sky could squeak through / Every woman adores a Fascist / The boot in the face, the brute / Brute heart of a brute like you._ ” You will not look at MacCunoval again. _Brute heart._

_“You stand at the blackboard, daddy,_  
In the picture I have of you,  
A cleft in your chin instead of your foot  
But no less a devil for that, no not  
Any less the black man who 

_Bit my pretty red heart in two._  
I was ten when they buried you.  
At twenty I tried to die  
And get back, back, back to you.  
I thought even the bones would do. 

_But they pulled me out of the sack,_  
And they stuck me together with glue.  
And then I knew what to do.  
I made a model of you,  
A man in black with a Meinkampf look 

_And a love of the rack and the screw._  
And I said I do, I do.  
So daddy, I'm finally through.  
The black telephone's off at the root,  
The voices just can't worm through. 

_If I've killed one man, I've killed two -_  
The vampire who said he was you  
and drank my blood for a year,  
Seven years, if you want to know.  
Daddy, you can lie back now. 

_There's a stake in your fat, black heart_  
And the villagers never liked you.  
They are dancing and stamping on you.  
They always knew it was you.  
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.” 

Guernsey had sped up throughout the reading, and by the end he’s almost breathless, his eyes bright, and the boys clap. “That’s not bad,” Quinton says, begrudgingly. You do not think about your father then, the sticky mess of hate and love for him you have in your heart, the pride, the shame. You push him back from you, away, he is gone and there is no point, there is no point. These are the things you do not think about: your mother, your father. _Esca MacCunoval_.

[Part II ](http://pouxin.livejournal.com/2883.html)

_____________________________

**Poetry Credits: Part I**

Introduction: From W.B. Yeats’ ‘ _The Song Of Wandering Aengus_ ’, 1899  
When Marcus is talking to Liathan: From Stephen Spender’s ‘ _Not Palaces, An Era’s Crown_ ’, 1933  
When Liathan is talking to Marcus: From Stephen Spender’s ‘ _I Think Continually Of Those Who Were Truly Great_ ’, 1933

 

**Dead Poet’s Society Inaugural Meeting**

Liathan Prince: From Henry David Thoreau’s ‘ _Walden_ ’, 1854  
Doug Cheef: From W. H. Auden’s ‘ _The Dog Beneath The Skin_ ’, 1935  
Marcus Aquila: ‘ _Here_ ’ by R.S. Thomas, 1961  
Steven Placidus: ‘ _Opening the Cage: 14 Variations on 14 Words_ ’ by Edwin Morgan, 1968 (the initial quotation, as per Morgan’s original, is from John Cage’s ‘ _Lecture on Nothing_ ’, 1949)  
Liathan Prince: ‘ _And the days are not full enough_ ’ by Ezra Pound, 1926; ‘ _Alba_ ’ by Ezra Pound, 1913  
Lucas Dacian: From Kahlil Gibran’s ‘ _The Prophet_ ’, 1923  
Quinton Hilary: From Louis MacNeice’s ‘ _Snow_ ’, 1936  
Esca MacCunoval: ‘ _Invictus_ ’ by William Ernest Henley, 1875  
Claude Hieron: ‘ _This Be The Verse_ ’ by Philip Larkin, 1971 (the irony here is that This Be The Verse is indeed now on many A Level syllabuses)  
John ‘Guernsey’ Hunter: From Sylvia Plath’s ‘ _Daddy_ ’, 1965


	2. Chapter 2

**Title** : Odi et Amo  
 **Rating** : NC-17  
 **Pairing** : Esca/Marcus  
 **Summary** : Esca and Marcus are at an all boys boarding school in the UK in the 1970s. They hate each other, until they both become members of the newly formed Dead Poets' Society... Adolescent ardor follows.  
 **Word count** : ~57k  
 **Warnings** : Explicit sex; language; (some) homophobic hate speech; reference to self harm; some (brief) violence

_Esca_

You do not need to be liked. This has always been your mantra. You’ve repeated it silently in your head whenever tears threaten, or your heart squeezes up painfully inside the brittle cage of your ribs. That doesn’t happen anymore. Before you just wanted it to be true, now you know it is. You do not need to be liked. Bizarrely, it’s something the Academy has actually reinforced in you. It could almost be their motto, instead of _pia fidelis_ : being right is more important than being liked. You note the irony of the fact that your father, their wayward son, in many ways is the best example of that. _You father in his full military regalia. It had been hot in the crowd. You were too short to see much. The warm, fresh baking smell of your mother, her hand in yours. “Do you know who that is, Esca? It’s Vanessa Redgrave. She’s a famous actress.” A horse rearing up on its hind legs. Smell of panic. A policeman, holding your father’s eye: “you should be ashamed.” And your father, his voice strong and certain, “no_ , you _should be ashamed. We all should be_.” So you do not need these boys to like you. Your sister liked you, and that was enough. And then more recently, perhaps Liathan… But it is not true liking you know that, fair weather, as Liathan himself would say: comme ci, comme ça. It is not the sort of liking that someone should become accustomed to. Who you definitely don’t want to like you, is Marcus Aquila. Like you give a shit what he thinks. Like you care if he likes you. Well, you know he doesn’t. Like you care he doesn’t. Or the rest of them. You have never courted popularity. These boys hate you, so what? You like the fact that they hate you. It means you are not like them. You _revel_ in it. But still you find yourself approaching Sassticca one day, after cross-country.

“Sir?”

“MacCunoval?” he looks at you neutrally, neither interested nor disinterested

“Sir, I was wondering if…” your voice catches and then clogs in your throat, and you feel a fierce blush start in the hot arch of your cheeks, _shit_. Your cough pointedly, continue. “I was wondering if I could try out for the First XV? Come along to practice. Sir.”  
 _Sir? Three_ times? You feel like the worst kind of creep. Sassticca appraises you coolly, his face giving away nothing, eyeing you up and down like you were livestock, or a slave at auction.

“Well,” he says, after a while, “I told you back in Remove you should come to trials. You’re fast, MacCunoval. Quick hands, good brains, not afraid of a scrap. We could always use someone like you on the wing. Come along next week. We’ll see.” He pauses. “If you have any questions in the meantime, just ask the Captain. Marcus Aquila,” he adds, as if you didn’t know. “Anything you need, Marcus can help.”  
You nod. “Sir.”

As if you’d ever ask Aquila for help with any of your _needs_.

 

So you turn up to rugby practice. You enjoy the look of horrified disbelief on the faces of Placidus, Hieron, Hillary… Aquila looks… Well… There is a slight quirk to his mouth and an intense sort of gleam in his ( _soft, green_ ) eyes. He looks…pleased. You do not dwell on this. Sassticca puts you straight in to the drills with the other boys, and they do not go easy on you, but you knew they wouldn’t. Then he sorts you in to teams of five and you’re told to play touch rugby against each other. You’re enjoying it, despite yourself. You can feel the blood coursing round your veins, the pulse of it in your ears, behind your eyes. You throat feels raw and scratchy from the cold air, and when you spit you can taste the iron tang of blood in your mouth. You feel alive. You quickly get the measure of the other boys. Hieron, Hilary, Dacian – they’re just beef really, worker drones, muscle. But Placidus is good. He’s fast and lean, like you. Aquila is a play maker. He isn’t selfish. He _thinks_. You’re surprised.

“Keep your bodies between the opponent and the ball! Stay on your feet, drive the legs and _look after the ball_!” Sassticca is shouting. You’d forgotten how much fun it is, not just the solitude of the distance runner, what you normally do, but being in a team, together, _depending on other people_ , the thrill of a shared victory. You see Hieron coming up on your left flank, head down, breathing like a bull, and you skip, dance, twist your legs under you, away from his charge. You feel fast, strong, invincible. The next thing you know, his shoulders are slamming in to your groin, hard enough to stopper up the breath in your lungs, and then his hands are on your thighs, and then you are up, up, and then too quickly to process, you are hitting the ground, your shoulders, the top of your neck, hard. Your head swims with it. You blink, blink. _Breathe_.  
You can hear Sassticca’s whistle, somewhere, far off, as if underwater. “ _Passive contact_!” he is shouting. “You! Boy! What part of ‘passive contact’ don’t you understand?”

Then someone else is standing above you. Aquila.

“What the fuck was that?” he is shouting.

“Sorry, I got carried away.”

“It wasn’t even a bloody legal tackle!”

“Yeah, it was,” and then quickly, and aimed downwards at you, “Sorry.”

“Where are you? Are you down on the ground with him? No! It was a fucking spear tackle! You practically dropped him on his head! Fuck!” Then there is some sort of jostling and churning of feet, and you can only deduce that Aquila and Hieron are… _fighting_? You turn your head weakly, screw up your eyes to the pale watery light.

“You’re just a nasty little shit,” someone is saying, and other people are saying “Marcus! Come on! Stop!” and “Hey!”, “Calm down”. Sassticca’s face blurs into focus as he squats down beside you.

“Alright, MacCunoval?” You try to speak and it comes out as a croak, so you pause, swallow heavily, blood and spit.

“Fine,” you manage, “fine.” He helps you up, gently for him. The rest of the boys are huddled around you, Aquila looking at you with a peculiar glow in his eyes. Hieron is rubbing his jaw, and he looks sheepish.

“Sorry, MacCunoval,” he mutters.

“’S alright,” you reply, because what else can you say? Besides, it is alright in a way. You know who has come out of this the worst, really. What you do not think about, even when play resumes, is Marcus Aquila, charging in, the look in his eyes, the… He _doesn’t_ like you. And you don’t want him to. You focus on that.

After practice, it’s showers. The tepid water feels good on the tingling soreness at the top of your spine, and you gingerly rub your knuckles into the flesh there. It will bruise, but you don’t think it’s done any serious damage. You turn under the spray, closing your eyes. Always close your eyes if turning into the centre of the showers. The rest of the time it’s eyes down, face to the wall. You know the drill. Except next to you – _next to you_ – is Marcus Aquila, and however hard you try not to look you can’t help but catch glimpses of him every now and then. It would be impossible not to. He is so _big_. There is no other word for it. Sometimes you still feel like a boy, too pointy and angular, but at 17 Aquila is already a man, there’s no doubt about that. You chance a glance at the strong, thick pillars of his legs, the dark wiriness of the hairs there, the burly roundness of his thighs. _Huh_. Then you see the scar, an angry looking tangle of mottled flesh all along the length of one thigh. This seems too intimate somehow, seeing this, the vulnerable shiny pink of the skin there, tender and fresh like the inside of a sea shell. You wonder what happened to him? Does it still hurt him? It looks cruel, tight. You feel yourself start at the flush of sympathy you feel for him, and you quickly look back at the floor, the swirls of the water whirly-gigging helplessly towards the drain, the stained enamel of the tiles. Then up. Aquila’s broad, wide back, the sudden smattering of freckles, so unexpected, careless splashes across the taut brown canvas of his skin. You think of Dead Poets’ Society, Aquila’s voice when he was reading, you think: _Glory be to God for dappled things_. How did Aquila even get _freckles_? There’s no bloody sun here. It’s not like he…walks around…with his top off. And the freckles spill over his shoulders, you see, onto the top of his chest, his clavicle. A sudden sharp pulse of blood, straight to your cock. You feel the telltale warmth begin, the thickening. You look away again, raggedly, but not fast enough, you’ve been careless, _for God’s sake MacCunoval_. You have never, _neve_ r, allowed them this. If they knew… It doesn’t bear…. What were you thinking?

“Like what you see MacRuntoval?” It’s Placidus, of all people, fucking Placidus. _Say nothing, say nothing_. Your brain whirrs planning your defence. Head down, eyes to the ground, say nothing. They can’t _know_. There’s no way they can know. _Freckles_. “Huh?” He has stepped out of the spray of his own shower somewhat, ready to advance in on you. His blood is up. You can smell it on him. _Say nothing_. “He was looking at you, Aquila. I always said he was a pet favourite of yours. I think he’s gone all _gay_ for you.”

“What?” Marcus mumbles, looking up sharply.

“MacRuntoval. He was staring at you. Weren’t you? Little fuck.”

The tops of Aquila’s ears have gone bright red. He doesn’t look at you.

“I very much doubt that, Steven,” he says mildly.

“Well,” Placdius starts, drawing even closer, and then Aquila turns, quickly, and places a large wet hand up in front of him, so it is almost-but-not-quite touching Placidus’ chest.  
“No. Just drop it. We’re all just trying to get clean. No one cares about your… _shit_.”

Placidus gapes slightly at him. You feel your heart well up with something you can’t quite describe.

“I’m just…”

“You’re just being a nasty little brat. You and Claude both. You’re just jealous that MacCunoval’s actually pretty good, that he might get left wing. Now shut up. That’s an order. As your captain.”

You know that’s not true. Placidus is fast, quick with his wits and his fingers, they’d never drop him from the squad. But this is obviously the first time Aquila’s ever spoken to him this way and it’s clear to you he has no idea what to do with it. His face is pale, tense, somewhere between surprise and anger. But he says nothing, shuts his eyes, turns back into the spray. You want to look at Aquila again, see if he’s looking at you, see how his eyes are, see what he thinks. But you don’t. You don’t.

 

_Marcus_

There is no way Esca MacCunoval was looking at you in the shower. He doesn’t even _like_ you. And it’s not like he’s… well, you’ve never heard that he is… You know such things go on at the Academy. For all the outward display of aggressive, chest-beating masculinity and insidious homophobia, at the end of the day it’s an all boys’ school in the middle of nowhere, and needs must. But the rumour mill is subtly geared to distinguish between those who simply fool around with each other for lack of other available avenues, and those who have been labelled as gay. And you’ve never heard anything like that about Esca MacCunoval. And you’re sure you would have heard, what with all the shit you hear about MacCunoval - not that they need any more ammunition to try and destroy him with. But it’s not like you care if he is or if he isn’t. It’s not like you care if he was looking at you or not. It’s not like _you’re_ interested in men. Even so, you glance across at him as you leave the shower room. Not speculatively. Not like that. Just to see if he looks OK after Steven’s got his little jibe in. Christ he is beautiful, though. Nothing about him is waste, everything is lean, hard, economical, perfect. You look away quickly. You don’t want to be caught looking. That’s the last thing you need. That’s the last thing either of you need.

You look up the poem Esca read at Dead Poets’ in the library. _Invictus_. Fierce little MacCunoval. You discover that Henley, the poet, had tuberculosis of the bone and had his leg amputated beneath the knee when he was 17. You find your fingers straying to your own leg, the lumpy knots of muscle healed raggedly over the nerves and tendons underneath. You remember lying in the hospital after the accident. You remember Uncle Aquila speaking low and urgent to the medical staff; “He _will not_ lose the leg.” You remember the hideous creeping fear of it, icing along your veins, stealthily wrapping its freezing fingers around you heart. _I cannot lose my leg. No_. They’d wanted to amputate, you know. But Uncle Aquila wouldn’t have it. You had never even met him before. You were woozy with painkillers, his face meanders in and out of your memories of that time, but you remember the shock of white hair, the periwinkle eyes. “You’re going to have to find some other way to fix him.” Before that you’d been living (outside of term time) with your mother’s sister and her husband back in the States. They hadn’t even bothered to fly over and see you in the hospital. It was this stranger, this strange man who was your father’s brother, who had sat by you and held your hand as you waited for sleep, who had brought you comics and grapes and a battered copy of _I, Claudius_. Who wouldn’t let them cut off your leg.

After you’d been given a clean bill of health to return to school you’d limped out to the stables and buried your face into the withers of your Uncle’s favourite mare and cried and cried. The smell of hay, and manure, and leather, the warm sympathetic breath of the horse on the back of your neck. Uncle Aquila had looked up from his paper as you’d come back into the house. “What’s the matter with you, Marcus?” And you’d told him. He’d rung your Aunt that evening. “It makes more sense for the boy to live with me, seeming as he’s being schooled here anyway.” She didn’t put up much of a fight – they had what they wanted anyway, she and her husband, living in your parents’ pretty white-fronted house, with its neat little lawn and its orange lilies. So now every holiday you stayed with Uncle Aquila. You don’t know what you would have done without him. He saved you, really. In every way. Among many things he saved you from self-pity. You lost a lot, but you did not lose your leg, and for that you are grateful. _In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud_. But there’s no way Esca could have known that when he chose the poem. He couldn’t have known how perfect it was for you. Just how perfect it was for him.

Your leg is bad tonight. You over-stretched it in rugby earlier. You lie stiff under the scratchy cotton covers, feeling the throb of pain through your thigh with every _slump slump_ of your heart. You listen to the regular rise and fall of Lucas’ snores and wonder if you should chance the tried-and-tested method, the one that always helps you sleep even on rough nights. Of course, no sooner has the thought entered your mind than your cock takes notice, twitching with interest, bobbing its head as if in agreement inside your regulation pyjama bottoms. There’s no way you’ll be able to sleep now if you don’t. You spit on your hand, lift the sheets and hold them gingerly aloft, eyes flicking back and forth to the huddled form of the sleeping Lucas across the room. The need to be quiet has always been paramount. In the junior years it was pretty much impossible, sleeping 10 boys to a dorm, and you had to be particularly inventive. There used to be a bingo going on of the most unusual places to have had a wank round the school – the sports pavilion, the sanatorium, the physics section at the back of the library. Prince even claimed to have done it waiting in Stephanos’ office for a caning whilst Stephanos was busy delivering the assembly. But it’s easier now, in sixth form, where you only share with one other. Still – you don’t want to get caught, so you keep one hand holding the sheets up so they won’t rustle and give you away.

It’s just mechanical to start off with. Hand sliding over the skin, the welcoming relief as the tension pulls away from your leg and crowds instead low in your belly, races across your balls. But then after the initial relief wears off your thoughts kick in. You’ve only ever kissed one girl, _properly_ kissed, last summer at Claude’s parents’ 25th anniversary ball, and so you play that back. Her dark eyes in the candlelight. Her breath against your neck as you’d sneaked round the back of the marquee. The soft, pliant feel of her mouth. The plump fullness of her breast under your hand, the crinkled velvet of her nipple when you’d worked your fingers under the stiff cotton of her bra.

Your breath speeds up.

Then, suddenly, Esca, earlier, in the shower. Wet pale marble of his skin; wetness; cool; pale; wet; _like the pale wet leaves of lily-of-the-valley he lay beside me in the dawn_ ; the leanness of his flanks; the tight high proud little ass; the peachy fluff of it; _do I dare to eat the peach_?

What the fuck?

You stop mid stroke, appalled. What is wrong with you? Why are you thinking about Esca MacCunoval? Your stomach rolls uneasily, but your cock, it would seem, has other ideas. Just the thought of his name, _Esca_ , and it is straining and throbbing in your stilled hand, as if urging you to continue.

You resume slowly, putting the whole weird diversion out of your mind, carefully thinking of girls again. Not Lila then, that memory clearly isn’t going to work. Other women. Jenny Agutter in _Walkabout_ ; the swimming scene; the little buds of her breasts; _this isn’t the first time this has happened, thinking about boys - **no!**_ ; getting out of the lake; the way the water looked on her flat belly; Esca; in the shower. Walking behind him and slamming him up against the cracked and stained wall tiles. They would be freezing, but you would be hot up against him, pressed against his length, from tip to tip. The wings of his shoulder blades arching into your chest. The valley of his ass hard up against your cock, opening for you. Turning his head. Eyes dark and angry with want. Girlish bow of his mouth slightly cut and bloodied like it was that day in Remove you rescued him from those boys out by the rugby pitches. This time when he spits it lands on your neck, mingling with the water of the shower. You are both so wet. He opens his mouth as if to snarl, but then he is kissing you with it, cool lips, plundering tongue. Mouthing “no”, twisting under you, biting at your mouth; but still he is kissing you, still he is shimmying that perfect ass up against your cock, your rock hard cock, his hands braced against the tiles, the twist of his neck, his lips, blood in your mouth, his blood, your blood, hot and sharp on your tongue as you bite down hard on your own lower lip to stop yourself shouting out as you come in thick long pulses all over your belly, violently enough to make your legs tingle with pleasure and the blood thunder inside your head.

Esca MacCunoval. _Shit_. You’re in trouble.

 

 

_Esca_

This time you don’t need Liathan to come and wake you up before Dead Poets’. You feel wired, buzzing, and you lie rigid under the blankets, listening to the steady creak of matron making her rounds, and the rise and fall of Tom Cradoc’s breath in the other bed. Eventually Cradoc rolls over so his face is buried into his pillow, and the room goes silent, black as pitch. You could almost be alone. Alone in the room, in the school, in the world.

Loneliness.

It’s something you try not to think about. You have tried to school it out of you, to teach yourself to be entirely self-sufficient. You always knew these boys would never like you, what with you being poor, and an orphan, and on account of your father. And it shouldn’t matter. _You_ have always been proud of your father. It’s not like he was a coward. And it’s not like any of _their_ fathers ever fought in that particular war, with the exception of Aquila’s father, being American; but you understand why they hate you for it anyway. It’s a kind of bravery they can’t understand, you know that. You remember your mother, the wheat coloured plaits of her hair winding thickly around her head as she held you in her lap, even though you were a bit too old for that sort of doting behaviour: “When someone believes in something, Esca, really believes in it, then it is very important that they stand up for it, that they fight for it, that they risk all that they are for it, or really they are nothing. And your father and I believe this war is wrong. Very, very wrong.” And she had kissed you, long and hard on your cheek; the feel of her eyelashes pressed into your temples. “Promise me, my little darling, promise me you’ll be brave while we’re gone.” You remember the comments made by other people in the village when the woman you were staying with, your parents’ friend, would take you and your sister out to the shops, or drop you off at the school gates. “What kind of woman just abandons her children like that?”; “He’s a disgrace. They shouldn’t let people like that into the army.” Of course, your parents never came back. But you kept your promise to your mother. You were brave. You _are_ brave. You will not let anyone see your fear.

Instead you wear your difference like a badge of honour, you do not want to be the same as these boys, you are proud that you are not. And so you tell yourself that being alone isn’t the same as being lonely, but it is, and it gnaws into your very soul, yellow-eyed loneliness with its rat teeth and sudden claws. You feel hollowed out with, worn down by managing it day, after day, after day. You know _all_ the boys here are lonely, snapped off from their roots; you know they were all sent here at 13 away from their mothers and fathers, from everything they knew, alone. But they at least have each other. And they have homes to go back to in the holidays, however removed they may now feel from them.

But you have…nothing.

And you want... you need.... something.

Even though it scares you to want or need anything.

You try not to think what it meant to you when Marcus stood up for you in the showers, when he got into a fight for you at rugby. You try not to care. But he is one of the only people here who has made you feel less lonely, who has reminded you of the glorious balm of someone else’s trust, their esteem, their care. He really is the worst person in the world for you to feel any sort of warmth for: the history between your fathers; and then the fact that you find him so physically devastating, hugely beautiful, that you want to curl up into him and have him pet you like a hound. And so you know you must never, never let him in. Marcus Aquila can be your fantasy, the hate adding a spicy fission to the desire. But he cannot be your friend. That would be your undoing.

This time you and Liathan are the first to the cave, having sprinted through the driving March rain, and you watch him get the fire going, difficult and smoky with the dampness of the wood, his clever white hands and his stubborn dark eyes. The others come in drips and drabs, you hear them approach in pairs or threes, laughing and whispering, clutching books of poetry and bags of tuck, coats pulled over their heads against the rain, cheeks bright and hair tousled and wet. You all huddle into the furthest corners of the rock, away from the sloping funnel that stretches up to the stars and lets the rain in. You do not look up when Aquila enters the cave, but you know it is him, your body knows it, prickling with recognition along its whole length. You know him. You do not know him.

He’s with Dacian, who stands to read first.

“Gentlemen! I begin with another reading from Society Member and Founding Father Henry David Thoreau: _In literature it is only the wild that attracts us. Dullness is but another name for tameness. It is the uncivilized free and wild thinking in ‘Hamlet’ and ‘The Iliad’, in all the scriptures and mythologies, not learned in the schools, that delights us. As the wild duck is more swift and beautiful than the tame, so is the wild – the mallard – thought, which ‘mid falling dews wings its way above the fens_.”

“Hah!” Liathan says in appreciation.

You can see out of the corner of your eye that Aquila is giving you a strange, intense sort of look, a muscle is flickering in his jaw; his eyes look sad, searching. You keep your eyes locked on Dacian. You will not look back at him.

 

 

_Marcus_

“ _A truly good book is something as natural, and as unexpectedly and unaccountably fair and perfect, as a wild-flower discovered on the prairies of the West or in the jungles of the East. Genius is a light which makes the darkness visible, like the lightning’s flash, which perchance shatters the temple of knowledge itself – and not a taper lighted at the hearthstone of the race, which pales before the light of common day._ ”

You think about Esca. Esca who is wild and uncivilised, who is not dull and common like the other boys. Swift, beautiful Esca, unexpectedly perfect, unaccountably fair.

You need to stop thinking like this. Esca will never be your friend. He has made it clear enough times how much he hates you, the contemptuous twist of his mouth whenever you speak, the hardening around his eyes. After all, what did he do at rugby when you got into a scrap with Claude over him? Nothing. And what did he say in the showers when you defended him to Steven? Nothing. Why do you want him to owe something to you so much? Why do you want to feel like you have some hold over him? With a hot flood of shame you remember the other night, thinking about Esca in the shower whilst you jerked yourself off, the intensity of your orgasm. Shit. Do **not** think about that.

Prince stands to read. “ _Je retrouverais le secret des grandes communications et des grandes combustions. Je dirais orage. Je dirais fleuve. Je dirais_ …”

“English for fuck’s sake!” hollers Quinton to a chorus of agreement, lobbing a marshmallow at Prince’s dark head.

“Fine. Bunch of cretinous Philistines that you are.  
 _I would rediscover the secret of great communications and great combustions.  
I would say storm. I would say river.  
I would say tornado. I would say leaf. I would say tree.  
I would be drenched by all rains, moistened by all dews.  
I would roll like frenetic blood on the slow current of  
the eye of words turned into mad horses into fresh children  
into clots into vestiges of temples into precious stones  
remote enough to discourage miners. Whoever would not  
understand me would not understand any better the roaring of a tiger._”

You think how it would feel to give in to all the sudden, violent urges inside you. You think how it would be to be free from expectations, from tradition, from history, from your father’s name, from honour. From rules. You think how it would be to be beyond the walls, to be beyond civilisation, to be in a strange land, to be different. You look at Esca MacCunoval.

Claude is speaking. " _The pride of the peacock is the glory of God / The lust of the goat is the bounty of God,_ ” and here he makes a slight rutting motion with his hips, to the general mirth of the group. “ _The wrath of the lion is the wisdom of God / The nakedness of woman is the work of God._ " And with a flourish he opens up some pages torn from a magazine he has been holding. “Lads! Here she is, the work of God: Denise McConnell, Miss March 1979.”

“Any relation MacCunoval?” calls Quinton. Esca ignores him. You force your eyes away from Esca; glance at the poster Claude is still holding aloft, the scantily clad playmate leaning up against the door to some sort of log cabin. Her legs look sturdy, brown from the sun, and her ass is noticeably paler, striped by her bikini bottoms. She is smiling, warm and wide and open, back over her shoulder. Soft brown eyes. Pretty. Uncomplicated. You feel a surge of desire shot through with relief. Thank God. For a while there you were worried that you didn’t fancy girls anymore, that you only fancied… Imagine Esca like that. Naked but for a loosened red corset, bare ass the same colour as the rest of his long pale leanness, taut body braced against the wood of the doorway, the hard twist of bicep in his upper arm, his narrow waist. Gazing back over his shoulder at the camera, but his grey eyes would be fierce, challenging. Your whole groin pulls and tightens at the thought, and you feel a rush of longing so palpable saliva squirts inside your mouth. Your ears redden. You swallow heavily.

“Like her do you Aquila?” Claude joshes gently. “I’ll let you borrow her for the night if you like.”

You look at him blankly, caught between lust and horror. _Do something, respond_. You smile weakly, and the boys grin back. If they could see inside your head right now, God knows… Where has this come from? It’s not like you even think about sex that much, not compared to Claude and Quinton who bring it up at every opportunity, who are always talking about girls, about their (very limited) experience with girls, about porn, about wanking; who spent most of post-rugby showers in the Hundred having competitions to see who could the most hang wet towels off their erections; who even try to look up the skirt of Miss Marcella, the ancient, arthritic French teacher. It’s like Esca McCunoval is some sort of sickness, he gets into your head, he makes your blood come alive like no one else. Suddenly when you look at him all you can think of is touching him, how his skin would feel against yours, his cool, pale skin. You _need_ to stop thinking these types of thoughts. You are _not_ queer.

Quinton takes a long draw from the bottle of whiskey he’d stashed last time. “ _Two strong impulses: One / to drink long and deep / the other / not to sober up too soon_.” He smacks his lips, and you reach for the bottle, taking a lengthy swig, letting the harshness of the alcohol burn the back of your throat and prickle against your nose and eyes as it grazes down through your chest. You drink til it hurts, til you need to breathe, til you stop thinking about Esca MacCunoval.

“Easy Colonel! Save some for the rest of us,” Placidus says, and your head is spinning so hard from the whiskey that you can’t tell if he is being snide or not. You pass him the bottle, and he stands to read. “ _Nose_.” He pauses, and presses a finger tip to his own, and you laugh at the unexpectedness of Steven taking the mickey out of himself, for his nose is long and slightly bulbous at the tip, with a messy break across the arch of it from a rugby match in the Hundred. Your laugh turns into a hiccup, as you feel the alcohol roll uneasily in your stomach. You don’t care. Anything that isn’t Esca MacCunoval. Steven smiles, then continues, deliberately dramatic, his slightly petulant voice raised to a deep baritone.

“ _Oh strong-ridged and deeply hollowed  
nose of mine! What will you not be smelling?  
What tactless asses we are, you and I, boney nose,  
always indiscriminate, always unashamed,  
and now it is the souring flowers of the bedreggled  
poplars: a festering pulp on the wet earth  
beneath them. With what deep thirst  
we quicken our desires  
to that rank odour of a passing springtime!  
Can you not be decent? Can you not reserve your ardours  
for something less unlovely? What girl will care  
for us, do you think, if we continue in these ways?_”

“No girl is going to care for you anyway Placidus, because you’re a dick,” calls Claude.

“ _Must you taste_ everything? _Must you know_ everything?  
 _Must you have a part in_ everything?”

“Amen to that!” shouts Lucas. Steven passes the bottle of Guernsey, who stands.

“ _whatever you have to say, leave  
the roots on, let them  
dangle_

_And the dirt_

_Just to make clear  
where they come from_”

You think of your roots, of where you come from, of the dirt, the dirt you don’t show to anyone. You stand. “ _As others see us_ ,” you say, low and quiet.

“ _With "No Admittance" printed on my heart,  
I go abroad, and play my public part;  
And win applause - I have no cause to be  
Ashamed of that strange self that others see._

_But how can I reveal to you, and you,  
My real self's hidden and unlovely hue?  
How can I undeceive, how end despair  
Of this intolerable make-believe?_

_You must see with God's eyes, or I must wear  
My furtive failures stark upon my sleeve_.”

You sit, quickly, feeling your cheeks flush with the pulse-hammering excited fear of reading in public, and of the whiskey singing in your blood. You are careful not to look at Esca, so you don’t see he is reaching for the bottle until his fingers brush lightly against your own. You jerk your hand back so quickly you almost drop the bottle, if it wasn’t for Esca’s cat-sharp reflexes it would be gone. “Sorry,” you mumble, dropping your eyes. You shift your legs awkwardly to the side. You’ve been half hard ever since you saw the playboy poster ( _and Esca, Esca naked, Esca taut and proud, Esca’s eyes a threat and a promise, come_ ), even having to stand and read wasn’t enough to make you go entirely soft, and now you’re achingly stiff inside your pants, your cock pressing and insistent, just from that one touch of Esca’s fingers, as cool and terrifying as a ghost’s. Esca. Touching you. He stands to read, the planes of his face uneven and ethereal in the firelight, his voice slightly rough from the woodsmoke.

_“’When I'm alone’ - the words tripped off his tongue  
As though to be alone were nothing strange.  
‘When I was young,’ he said; ‘when I was young...’_

_I thought of age, and loneliness, and change.  
I thought how strange we grow when we're alone,  
And how unlike the selves that meet and talk,  
And blow the candles out, and say good night._

_Alone... The word is life endured and known.  
It is the stillness where our spirits walk  
And all but inmost faith is overthrown.”_

The boys clap and talk and Esca passes the whiskey bottle to Cheef. You try not to think about Esca’s poem, about how it reminded you of the one you had picked for yourself. _Esca is lonely like me. Esca is scared like me_. You want to be Esca’s friend, his brother. And you want…other things. Esca pressed up against the cold, discoloured tiles of the shower room, the cool of his skin against the heat of yours, Esca’s ass, his hands, his tongue. You don’t know what you want. Your belly feels like it’s full of rocks. Your heart clenches tight with the confusion of it. “ _Hush now_ ,” Cheef is saying, “ _You cannot describe it.”_

_“Is it like heavy rain falling,  
and lights going on, across the fields,  
in the new housing estate?”_

And around you the rain thrums against the trees, against the gritty sides of the opening of the cave, it falls inside the cavern, the rocks are damp with it. The night air smells alive, it smells of wetness and wild things. You chance one more quick look at Esca. You feel full of… you can’t describe it.

_“Cold, cold. Too domestic, too  
temperate, too devoid of history._

_Is it like a dark windowed street at night,  
the houses uncurtained, the street deserted?_

_Colder. You are getting colder,  
and too romantic, too dream-like.  
You cannot describe it._

_The brooding darkness then,  
that breeds inside a cathedral  
of a provincial town in Spain?_

_In Spain, also, but not Spanish.  
In England, if you like, but not English.  
It remains, ever when obscure, perpetually.  
Aged, but ageless, you cannot describe it.  
No you are cold, altogether too cold._

_Aha – the blue sky over Ampourias,  
the blue sky over Lancashire for that matter…_

_You cannot describe it._

_…obscured by clouds?_  
I must know what you mean.

_Hush, hush._

_Like those old men in hospital dying,  
who, unaware strangers stand around their bed,  
stare obscurely, for a long moment,  
at one of their own hands raised –  
which perhaps is bigger than the moon again –  
and then, drowsy, wandering, shout out, ‘Mama’._

_Is it like that? Or hours after that even:  
the darkness inside a dead man’s mouth?_

_No, no, I have told you:  
you are cold, and you cannot describe it.”_

 

_Esca_

You’re surprised when Aquila leaves the cave beside you after Dead Poets’. He’s never really spoken to you before, not without a clear reason. You thought maybe, after the showers… But it’s obvious he can barely stand to touch you, when you reached for the whiskey bottle during the readings, he snatched his fingers away from yours as if you’d branded him. He looks across at you awkwardly, and then away again, quick little snatchy glances. He seems suddenly bumbling and over-sized. He is normally quite graceful in his movements, despite his height and build and the limp you’ve occasionally noticed; but now he is stiff and unsure. He almost seems…embarrassed? You can’t really see well enough in the patchy silvery light of the woods, with the dark clouds still drizzling a fine dust of rain over you, but it is very possible his ears and neck have gone red.

“So, um, I liked your poem,” he says.

“Thanks.” What else is there to say?

“It was kind of…um… this place is pretty lonely sometimes, huh?”

You’re surprised. Not necessarily that Aquila is lonely, but that he would choose to share this with you.

“I can’t imagine you’re that lonely. You’re quite the joiner.”

“Oh,” Aquila rubs at the back of his neck. “You mean with rugby and stuff? Yeah, but it’s not the same as… you know… real friends… and…” he trails off helplessly. “Family.”

You feel your eyebrows shooting up your face.

“But you _have_ family.”

“Well, I have my Uncle. My mom and dad are both dead. Like you.” Aquila stops abruptly. “Sorry. That was… sorry.”

“That’s OK. I didn’t know your parents were…,” and you didn’t it’s true. You knew Aquila’s father was dead, obviously. Well, you knew the stories, you knew that he and his men had disappeared into the jungle and never come back. You’d even heard the other boys making snide comments about it sometimes. In the Remove they’d taken to leaving white feathers in your bed, and one time someone, in an act of singular spite and daring, had put one in Aquila’s.

“What the fuck is this?” he had asked, face blazing, eyes the hot dangerous green of slime over quicksand.

“It’s a little gift Aquila, in memory of your father,” Placidus had said silkily.

“ **My father was not** …” Aquila’s voice had been so tangled with rage it had got snarled up in his throat and he’d had to swallow and start again. “My father was not a… _coward_.”

“Well, how are we to know that?” Placidus had asked. “He _did_ get a lot of people killed.”

“Lions led by donkeys, isn’t that what they say?” Hillary had chimed in.

“Yeah, for all we know he went native like MacCuntoval’s father,” Hieron had added. It was him who had bourne the brunt of Aqiuila’s rage, even though it was probably Placidus who had instigated it, smooth and sly, with his talent for smelling out people’s darkest flaws. Hieron lacked the intelligence to be a true bully. But Aquila had slammed him up against the wall of the dormitory, his thick arm pressed up against the line of Hieron’s throat, til the boy’s eyes bugged and his face burned pinkish blue.

“If you ever… _ever_ …say anything like that about my father again, I will break…your fucking…arm. Do you understand?” His voice was low, but shaking, menace and rage. Hieron had gaped mutely. Placidus and Hillary pulled Aquila off.

“Jesus, Marcus, we were just having some fun,” Hillary had muttered.

“You’ve totally lost it,” said Placidus, not without a degree of pleasure. At the time you had felt angry with Aquila, with his stupidity and careless cruelty, _oh so the worst insult here is being compared with my father, is it? Heaven forbid_ … But now you wonder if it wasn’t just the same burning flash of impotent rage you feel sometimes, that you can’t defend your father, that you have to pretend not to care when people are cruel and ignorant, that you wish you could be more like him, brave and true and unafraid.

“I’m sorry too,” you add. “It’s difficult.”

“I miss them,” Aquila says simply. You’re so distracted by looking at his sad face in the drizzling dark, the almost noble tilt to his jaw, trying to work out what it is that you have together, what this strange energy is you can feel all of a sudden, that you step on an uneven patch of mud in the trees and slip. Quick as a flash, _his catcher’s hands_ , Aquila grabs you, one strong, warm hand grasping your own. “Easy there!” He smiles. His teeth look very white in the gloom. “Too much whiskey, huh?” He does not let go of your hand. You can feel the thrill of your pulse leaping in your wrist, tingling along the sensitive skin of your fingers where they are pressed to Aquila’s. Your mouth feels dry, your palms damp. You are careful to let your hand lie almost slack in his hold, even though you want to squeeze, hard, to feel the mash of bones and flesh within your grip; to take his hand and bite at his knuckles; to hold it fast against the hammer of your heart; or the sudden stir and prickle of your cock. He does not let go of your hand, even though you have both started walking again, even though there are other boys, somewhere in the woods, who could see. Your chest feels tight with surprise, with joy, with lust, with disgust. You look across at Aquila. His eyes are very green. You want to say something, but what would you say? _You cannot describe it_. Then, suddenly, you become aware of the cool press of metal against the edge of your little finger. The signet ring. The dolphin signet ring of Aquila. And his father. You feel like someone has thrown a bucket of ice water over your heart.

“Your ring.”

“Huh?” Aquila sounds distracted. His face is flushed, happy. He looks down at where your hands are joined, your pale long one in his wide, blunt, brown one.

“Your signet ring. Your father had the same one.”

“Yes?”

Is he being wilfully dense? You glower at him.

“You know our fathers were at the Academy together?”

“Yes.”

“You know my father was your father’s _fag_?”

Now Marcus’ flush takes on the hue of embarrassment. He lets go of your hand.

“Oh, um, yes….”

“His _slave_ for all intents and purposes. You know your father used to have him beaten on an almost daily basis. And it wasn’t like now. They didn’t really use the slipper then, it was always the cane. They used to take a _run up_. And then one day my father did something…some minor thing, I don’t know, burnt his toast too much on one side or didn’t turn his bed down properly, and your father hit him round the side of the head, and that ring sliced into his ear. It ripped it right open. For the rest of his life he had a split in it, like an alley cat. Or a tame hunting dog, when you clip their ears. Apparently your father just laughed. _Laughed_. ‘That’s what Masters do to disobedient slaves’.”

There is silence.

“I’m sorry that happened,” Aquila says quietly, after a while. “I didn’t know.” You say nothing, allowing the freezing wash of indignant rage to swill around inside you, chasing out the last vestiges of that strange warm glow you’d felt when Aquila had held your hand. But after a while it drains away, leaving you feeling hollowed out, cold and damp as the frigid night air, and as you cross the lawn towards the back kitchen door, you find to your surprise you miss the feel of his hand, warm and capable, around yours.

[Part III](http://pouxin.livejournal.com/3219.html)

________________________

**Poetry Credits: Part II**

When Esca is looking at Marcus in the shower: From Gerard Manley Hopkins’ ‘ _Pied Beauty_ ’, 1918  
When Marcus is thinking about Esca as he “enjoys” himself: From Ezra Pound’s ‘ _Alba_ ’, 1913; From T. S. Eliot’s ‘ _The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock_ ’, 1915

 

**Dead Poets’ Society: Second Meeting**

Lucas Dacian: From Henry David Thoreau’s essay, ‘ _Walking_ ’, 1851  
Liathan Prince: From Aime Cesaire’s ‘ _Notebook of a Return to the Native Land_ ’, 1939 (translated from the French by Clayton Eshleman and Annette Smith).  
Claude Hieron: From William Blake’s ‘ _Proverbs From Hell_ ’, 1790  
Quinton Hilary: From Rumi’s ‘ _Four Quatrains_ ’, c.1207-1273; first published in English in 1949 (translated from the Arabic by Coleman Barks and John Moyne).  
Steven Placidus: ‘ _Smell_ ’ by William Carlos Williams, 1923  
John ‘Guernsey’ Hunter: ‘ _These Days_ ’ by Charles Olson, 1960  
Marcus Aquila: ‘ _As Others See Us_ ’ by Basil Dowling, 1949  
Esca MacCunoval: ‘ _Alone_ ’ by Siegfried Sassoon, 1959  
Doug Cheef: ‘ _Hunt The Thimble_ ’ by Dannie Abse, 1968


	3. Odi et Amo (3/7) | Esca/Marcus | NC-17

**Title** : Odi et Amo  
 **Rating** : NC-17  
 **Pairing** : Esca/Marcus  
 **Summary** : Esca and Marcus are at an all boys boarding school in the UK in the 1970s. They hate each other, until they both become members of the newly formed Dead Poets' Society... Adolescent ardor follows.  
 **Word count** : ~57k  
 **Warnings** : Explicit sex; language; (some) homophobic hate speech; reference to self harm; some (brief) violence

 

_Marcus_

The Academy used to be a private home, a sprawling country mansion, and off the side of one of the Latin classrooms, now only accessible by squeezing through one of the Victorian sash windows, is a roof terrace. You sometimes sneak out there on nights when you need to be alone, or think. In the junior years you’d go with Lucas, the breathless creep through the gloomy deserted corridors, so quiet after the bustle and jostle of the day they felt almost haunted, and then you both would sit out under the stars, drinking thermos flasks of hot chocolate and eating nougat. But mostly now you just go by yourself, to be by yourself, to be alone. In all your time of coming here you’ve never seen anyone else on the terrace. 

Maybe this has made you complacent, because even though the stealthy sneak down the long central corridor was as careful as ever, one eye always over your shoulder and heart in your mouth (to be caught would probably mean a suspension), you heave the window open dramatically, carelessly, and tumble through it out into the crisp night air without even looking.

Esca MacCunoval is on the terrace.

You heart gives a strong sudden thump of shocked exhilaration, then stops square in your chest.

Esca turns to look at you, eyes as dark and foreboding as a storm, brewing.

“Oh,” you say, stupidly. “You’re here.”

You notice he is holding a hand-rolled cigarette in one hand, long and delicate, it looks a bit like the clove ones Liathan smokes, but the smell is unmistakable, the musky compost tang of cannabis. “Are you smoking a _spliff_ ?”

Esca’s eyes narrow further. “Why, feel like reporting me?”

“No!” you say, too quickly, your tongue stumbling over itself in your attempt to appease him, to stamp out the grey rage that is always bubbling under his dark lashes. “No.” Esca puts the roll-up to his lips and breathes in deeply.

“Good,” he says eventually, through a mouthful of thick silver smoke.

You stand awkwardly, arms slumped by your sides, not knowing what to do. Should you just turn around and retreat back through the window? He can’t want you here. Or would that just look rude?

“Here,” Esca says, proffering you the cigarette.

“Oh, um, I don’t… I haven’t…. I mean, thanks,” you finish lamely. Your fingers brush as you take the roll-up from him, and you feel the touch like a thousand dark sparks shooting down your spine. You raise the spliff hesitantly to your mouth and take a shallow breath. You haven’t done this before. It’s not something which is common at the Academy. The consequences of being caught with drugs would be catastrophic. You try not to think about that. Instead you try to appear nonchalant, like you do this all the time, but as the clogging gust of smoke fills your mouth your lungs give an alarmed clench in your chest and you suddenly feel like you’re drowning. You cough helplessly, one hand clutched to your sternum, eyes watering. Through the film of tears you can see Esca smirking at you, and you feel a hot jab of anger punch in your belly. Why is he always judging you? For all these imagined wrong-doings, for things your father did before you were born, for things the other boys do, and now for this, for not being cool enough, for not being all edgy and self-assured like Liathan. Well, whatever. You don’t have to be like Liathan. You don’t have to be Esca’s friend. _You_ already have friends. You don’t have to care whether he likes you or not. You’re ready to turn and leave, but Esca’s smirk softens into a half-smile.

“Here,” he says, “come here.” You hesitate. He takes the spliff back from you, holding it lightly in-between his thumb and forefinger. “Now breathe in when I click my fingers.” And he places the red glowing tip of the cigarette into his mouth, making a tiny gasp escape you at the sheer unexpectedness of it. You almost raise your hand to stop him, what is he doing, trying to hurt himself? But then he is leaning in, close, so close, the smell of him is almost stronger than the heady aroma of the cannabis, soap, lemons. For a minute you think he is going to kiss you, and your heart gives a delighted lurch. Then he cups his hands around your mouth and chin, and clicks his fingers. You breathe. Esca. This time the smoke is less aggressive on your lungs, and you feel the soft sepia tingle of the drug languidly uncurl itself along your nerves, making your head hum. Esca steps back from you. His eyes look like mist.

“Better?”

You nod mutely, body thrumming. The ends of Esca’s hair look impossibly bronze in the moonlight, they form a halo around the pale comet of his face, he is all silver and bronze and golden, precious, his skin glitters. You think _Eldorado_. You think about how his lips might taste. You think _love_. You feel sick.

“So,” Esca is saying, over the wash and crash of thoughts in your head . “I’m just…sorry about the other day. I was angry, but it’s not your fault. I know that, um, I know you’re not really like….that. I was hoping we might be…friends?”

Esca’s mouth, his pretty mouth, the plump sulk of his mouth, saying impossible things. Friends? You know suddenly you couldn’t be friends with Esca MacCunoval. Not now your head is teaming with thoughts of him in your arms, his breath on your neck, his lips pressed to yours. Your stomach staggers with dismay. You can taste the bile at the back of your throat. You feel confused, disorientated.

“Esca, um, I can’t…” You hesitate – you have no idea how to articulate all the things that you are feeling in a way that won’t make him hate you. Or be disgusted, disgusted at the thoughts you have inside your head. “I’m not sure that would be a good idea.” For a second Esca looks wounded, and then his eyes slam shut.

“Suit yourself,” he says simply. Suddenly the last thing you want is to be here, on the roof with Esca MacCunoval, to have to listen to anything else he might have to say. You turn quickly, and almost dive back through the window, bumping your shoulder awkwardly against a desk. You think you should say goodbye, but even that sounds stupid in your head, so you don’t. You don’t say anything. You just go.

Esca doesn’t speak to you again until Dead Poets’. You try to make eye contact with him in all the lessons you share together (which isn’t many – he’s in a higher set than you for maths, physics and biology so you only see him in English) but he steadfastly ignores you, staring straight ahead, eyes as hard and cold as flint, but beautiful though, the promise of sparks. You try and catch up with him after rugby practice, get as far as fisting a hand into the material of his shirt.

“Esca –“

“Fuck off Aquila,” he hisses sharply, twisting agiley out of your grip. He stalks away from you, bronze hair a tangled mess around his head, eyes like winter. _His hair is beautiful / Cold as the March wind his eyes._

You call out to him in the hall too, even though you’re with Claude, who gives you a strange look. Esca ignores you, obviously, staring through you imperviously. He’s with Prince, and as the four of you pass each other, Prince gives you a tight, arch smile, raising one quizzical eyebrow. You feel the colour flood to your face, ears burning, and look down quickly, but not quick enough to avoid seeing Prince fling one long, elegant arm extravagantly round Esca’s neck.

You feel terrible. You should have just said ‘yes’. God knows you want to be Esca’s friend, you’ve always wanted to be his friend, right from Foundation when you were certain that he hated you. But it’s just… How could you be his friend when you want to…when you want… You don’t even know what it is you want, but you know it isn’t the sort of thing friends should want from each other. You know you want to taste the delicate skin that covers the fine tendons of his neck. You know when Prince jostles Esca, nudges into him or slaps his back, laughing, you know those things make you feel a strange white heat that runs from your guts up into your head and hums and hisses right behind your eyes. You don’t want anyone else to touch Esca. You want him to be yours. To be _your_ best friend. You want to sink your thumbs into the pale muscles of his arm until they leave dents, that will clot and purple and bruise. You want to mark him. It makes you miserable, sick from the shame of it, you can’t stand your own thoughts. You rub your knuckles into your eyes.

“Aquila, are you, like, alright?” Claude asks.

“What? Yeah,” you say gruffly.

“Only you’ve been acting… _weird_.” Claude pauses for dramatic effect. “Hillary thinks you’re _in love_.”

“What?” You feel a sharp kick of panic lash in your belly.

“Yeah, he thinks you’ve got some girl tucked away, back at your Uncle’s.”

“Oh.”

“Well?” Claude looks at you expectantly. What can you say? Your heart feels heavy and hopeless.

“Yeah. Sure.”

Claude looks ecstatic. “What’s she like? Have you kissed her? Have you touched her up? Have you…” and he makes and enthusiastic rutting motion with his hips.

“Claude, I’m not going to discuss this with you.”

“Aquila –“

“No!” You hold one hand up, palm flat, silencing him.

“Oh my God, you _do_ love her. You _love_ her.”

“Shut up.”

And Claude does, but he smirks over at you, infuriating, looking as satisfied as if it were him who had the secret girlfriend. But at least he doesn’t guess at the truth, at the real secrets you have inside your heart.

 

You try again at Dead Poets’.

“Hi, Esca,” you say as you perch yourself on the edge of a jut of rock. Esca gives you a cool look of disbelief, holding your gaze for two long, pulpy heartbeats, then pointedly looks away. Prince notices, of course, he notices everything, and his mouth makes a strange downwards quirk, amused, surprised, _thinking_.

“Aquila,” he says smoothly, with a gentle lace of sympathy that you find strangely unnerving.

“Prince.”

It’s raining, _again_ , so once more you are all huddled into the far corner of the cave, bundled up in your winter coats against the cool late March night. You hear the distant growl of thunder, faraway and quiet, but still full of menace. The boys whoop. Esca’s eyes are like a far off storm, beautiful, threatening, coming closer and closer to the fragile shelter of your heart.

Hieron stands to read. “I think a darker turn for this evening’s readings, gentlemen. Pathetic fallacy and all that. _Turning and turning in the widening gyre / The falcon cannot hear the falconer / Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold / Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world._ ” A boom of thunder fills the cave, as if on cue. “ _The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere / The ceremony of innocence is drowned_.” Esca’s face is wrapt, turned away from you, fierce, he looks like some sort of pagan god in the crackling light of the fire, with the sound of rain and thunder. You want to seize him, and press him to you, hard. You want the blood-dimmed tide to be loosed. You want to bite him. You remember: the blood on his mouth, in your mouth, imagining him in the darkness. _For God’s sake_!

Lucas is reading:

_“One dark night,  
my Tudor Ford climbed the hill's skull;  
I watched for love-cars. Lights turned down,  
they lay together, hull to hull,  
where the graveyard shelves on the town. . . .  
My mind's not right.”_

“Good old Lowell,” says Quinton, “perverted ‘til the last.”

_A car radio bleats,  
"Love, O careless Love. . ." I hear  
my ill-spirit sob in each blood cell,  
as if my hand were at its throat. . .  
I myself am hell;  
nobody's here-“_

You feel your skin prickle with the prescience of the poem, you know this is a hell of your own making. You just don’t know how you let it happen. You need to make things right, you need Esca to be your friend. But you must never, _never_ let him know about the other things you want. Him; anyone. Especially him.

“ _The desires of the heart are as crooked as corkscrews,_ ” Steven is saying, “ _Not to be born is the best for man / The second-best is a formal order / The dance’s pattern; dance while you can._

_Dance, dance for the figure is easy,  
The tune is catching and will not stop;  
Dance till the stars come down from the rafters;  
Dance, dance, dance till you drop.”_

Prince has being beating a slow tattoo on an empty tin bucket to the rhythm of Steven’s voice, and when he finishes the boys stamp and whistle their approval. Then, before the applause has even finished, Esca stands to read. His eyes crackle with an angry intensity. He finally looks at you, one long, angry look, full of loathing and…something else…something you can’t quite put your finger on. Then he starts to read:

_“Odi et amo. Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris?  
Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.”_

“Jesus,” Claude moans, “you and bloody Prince and your obsession with reading everything in languages no one else ruddy understands.”

Prince is looking at Esca strangely, head cocked to one side.

“It means,” he says slowly, “It means: I hate and I love. It goes something like this: _I love her, though I hate her so. You say: ‘how can this be?’ I know not, even though I feel the searing agony!”_

_“Excrucior,_ ” Cheef adds, “I am crucified with it.”

Steven is also looking at Esca, slyly. He shifts his gaze to Prince, “You said ‘she’, but the Latin is not specific.”

“What?”

“The Latin isn’t specific. He could be talking about a man. I love _him_ , though I hate _him_ so. After all, we all know Catullus was partial to a bit of the old…” and he makes a crass gesture with his hand and mouth. He is still smilingly knowingly at Esca and Prince, and you realise he thinks Esca said the poem for Prince, they probably all do. But he was looking at you. At _you_. I love him though I hate him so. I love him. I love.

“Well, you would have buggery on the brain, wouldn’t you Pladickus,” Prince says smoothly. “I prefer Bidart’s version anyway: _I hate and love. Ignorant fish, who even / wants the fly while writhing._ ”

And you do. Want him. Even as you hate yourself for it.

 

_Esca_

You think maybe you looked at Aquila too long before you started reading. You think maybe he knows you meant the poem for him. The thought makes you feel sick with the horror of it. You cannot stand for Aquila to have that power over you. You won’t surrender anything to him, anything. It’s bad enough that you suggested you should be friends, and he said no. You made the offer quickly, carelessly, trying not to think through to what it might mean. You’d felt flush with the nearness of him, the warm suck of his breath when you’d blown the smoke out into his mouth, and suddenly all the other things had seemed to fall away, it was just you and Marcus, there, on the roof, in the starlight. With his cat-green eyes. And then he’d been all… _that wouldn’t be a good idea_. It had been awful, it couldn’t have been worse if he’d punched you in the throat. Thinking about it now you can still feel the crash and slam of humiliation. Why? Why had you given him an in like that? You’d always known what he’d do with it. Bastard.

And even worse, since then, you’ve been thinking about him more than ever. He’s been making strange moony calf eyes at you. You’ve no idea why, he made it perfectly clear he wants nothing to do with you. But you’ve noticed his gaze on you, of course you have, all wet and mournful. And stunning. When he touched you after rugby it was like a fireball had caught and ignited on your sleeve. Shit. _Shit_. You will not want Aquila. You will not. Oh, but you do, you do.

Now he is standing to read. He looks at you again, that same damp, hopeful twist to his gaze.

_“My enemy came nigh,  
And I  
Stared fiercely in his face.  
My lips went writhing back in a grimace,  
And stern I watched him with a narrow eye.  
Then, as I turned away, my enemy,  
That bitter heart and savage, said to me:  
"Some day, when this is past,  
When all the arrows that we have are cast,  
We may ask one another why we hate,  
And fail to find a story to relate.  
It may seem then to us a mystery  
That we should hate each other."_

_Thus said he,  
And did not turn away,  
Waiting to hear what I might have to say,  
But I fled quickly, fearing had I stayed  
I might have kissed him as I would a maid.”_

Aquila reads the last part in a fast breathless mumble, eyes downcast, and sinks quickly back onto his ledge. Your heart gives a little breathless flutter of shock. _Kissed him as I would a maid_. It was pretty clear to you, almost from the beginning, that the choice of poem was a reference to your encounter on the terrace. But the last two lines have thrown you for a loop. Aquila thought about… he left because… he wanted to… _kiss_ you? Aquila….? The buzz and clutch of the prospect clogs in your head, stemming all more coherent thoughts.

“Did you just read a poem about kissing a bloke?” Hillary asks in disbelief.

“It’s a metaphor, Quinton,” Liathan says snidely. “Besides, I hear on the grapevine that Aquila has got himself a maid to kiss all of his own.” He chances a quick, sidelong glance at you then, but you keep your face neutral. You’ve had years of practice.

Of course Aquila has a girlfriend. Of course he does. But…still…you can’t really think of any other way to interpret that poem.

Doug is standing to read. “Well, much as I hate to draw away from the decidedly…homosexual way the evening seems to be turning in –“ the boys laugh “-I have decided to go back to basics with some good old William Shakespeare:

_Love is my sin and thy dear virtue hate,  
Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving:  
O, but with mine compare thou thine own state,  
And thou shalt find it merits not reproving;  
Or, if it do, not from those lips of thine,  
That have profaned their scarlet ornaments  
And seal'd false bonds of love as oft as mine,  
Robb'd others' beds' revenues of their rents.  
Be it lawful I love thee, as thou lovest those  
Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee:  
Root pity in thy heart, that when it grows  
Thy pity may deserve to pitied be.  
If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide,  
By self-example mayst thou be denied!”_

And that’s exactly what you don’t want from Aquila: his pity. You can’t stand to think he might know the kinds of thoughts you’ve had about him, and feel _sorry_ for you. But the poem… And you realise, very suddenly and coolly, that you don’t hate him, after all. That you don’t hate him at all. Guernsey is reading: “ _The single clenched fist lifted and ready / Or the open asking hand held out and waiting / Choose / For we meet by one or the other.”_ You can see Aquila is looking at you again, and you look back. His eyes are very clear. His skin looks tawny gold in the firelight. You hear the thunder rumble, quieter again now, the storm has passed over you. One corner of Aquila’s mouth half lifts, and you let yours mirror his. Looking.

_“They have looked each other between the eyes, and there they found no fault.  
They have taken the Oath of the Brother-in-Blood on leavened bread and salt:  
They have taken the Oath of the Brother-in-Blood on fire and fresh-cut sod,  
On the hilt and the haft of the Khyber knife, and the Wondrous Names of God,”_ Hilary is saying.

_“Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,  
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;  
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,  
When two strong men stand face to face though they come from the ends of the earth!”_

So maybe you have more in common with Aquila than you thought. So maybe he is sorry. So maybe you can be friends. You just wish your heart didn’t thrill so much at the thought of it.

 

So you and Aquila have an uneasy sort of truce. Not that you’ve exactly spoken to each other, but you smile back at him in the hallway now, nod. You try not to think about the last line of his poem. Maybe it’s just like Liathan said, a metaphor. You shouldn’t be so literal. There’s no way Aquila’s interested in…guys. _No way_. But you can be friendly with him. You can do that. Still, you’re surprised when he saves a seat for you in English.

“Esca!” he calls when you enter the classroom, smiling widely and patting the desk next to him with one large brown hand. You hesitate, unsure. There’s a seat next to Liathan, where you have taken to sitting recently. Liathan notices your quick glance in his direction and raises one eyebrow, knowingly. As ever the faint trace of mockery ghosts around his smile. Aquila sees your hesitation and his mouth starts to drop, disappointment starts to colour the gentle ferny green of his eyes. You smile back, and quickly make your way to the seat next to Aquila, determined not to look at Liathan again in case you start blushing. That’s the last thing you need. Aquila grins at you, happily; his big, dopey smile. You don’t know how you could ever have thought he was such a bastard. He’s just too...nice. Not that he’s stupid, but he lacks the duplicity of a lot of these boys, their calculated hurts, their spite. He has a lovely, open face. Honest. You can’t believe you told him he looked like a pig farmer. You’re a shit. It suddenly feels very important for you never to hurt him again, or let anyone else hurt him, ever. It’s a strange sort of feeling, and you’re not entirely comfortable with it. You mustn’t get too attached. If there’s one thing the Academy has taught you, it’s never trust anyone or anything. Not even your own feelings. Especially not your own feelings.

“So, um, do you want to practice some rugby drills later?” Aquila asks you after class. “I’ve got a free period right before prep, so I thought we could maybe get some warm-ups in before the official practice starts.”

“OK,” you say.

“Great.” Aquila looks happy. It feels strange for your actions to have that much power over someone else’s happiness. Nobody else here gives a shit what you do or don’t do. Even Liathan is far too insouciant to ever reveal that he actually cares about anything. “I’ll see you at the Pav at 3.”

“See you.”

As he jogs down the corridor to get to his next class, you can sense rather than see Liathan’s eyes on you, speculative, curious. You purposefully don’t look at him. Liathan can think what he wants. You can be friends with who you like. And that’s _all_ you are. Or will be. Friends.

 

Aquila is waiting for you outside the sports pavilion, even though the afternoon is overcast and a light drizzle is falling. He grins when he sees you. He looks so authentically pleased it makes your heart pull tight and then lift inside your chest.  
“I was worried you might not turn up.”

You’re surprised. “Why wouldn’t I turn up?”

Aquila shrugs. “I don’t know. I guess… it’s kind of weird that we’re friends. I thought people might think it’s weird.”

He says ‘people’ in such a way that you know he means Liathan. “People can think what they like.”

“Yeah. I guess.” Aquila scuffs at the ground awkwardly. “I’m surprised that you like me,” he says without looking up. Despite his height and breadth he suddenly looks small, uncertain, childlike. To your surprise you find it quite endearing.

“Well, I’m surprised that _you_ like _me_. Let’s face it, I’m the unpopular one here.” You smile grimly.

“That’s only because the other boys are wankers. You know that.”

“Yeah. But still. You’re so steady and normal and everyone likes you. And yeah, those boys can be dicks, but they also don’t like me because…well, I’m not exactly easy to get on with. I know that. I’m sort of…prickly.”

Aquila looks up, gives that grin again, making your tummy give a little swoop. “Yeah. That’s _why_ I like you. That’s one of my favourite things about you. Esca.”

You laugh. “Well, good. Marcus,” you respond, his first name tasting strange in your mouth. Strange, but not unpleasant.

 

You practice passing, running in lazy zigzags up and down the pitch until you feel breathless, lungs stinging from the cool air, hair damp from the unrelenting smattering of rain. Marcus gives you occasional bits of coaching, but not in a bossy, overbearing way. It’s fun. You’ve been taking it easy for a bit now, mucking around, Marcus taking running drop kicks at the goal; feinting as if he is going to pass you the ball and then running for the touchline, whooping with laughter. The next time he tries that you grab him soundly round his waist and the pair of you tumble to the slippery ground. You land in a bundle, you head against the broad expanse of Marcus’ chest.

“Ha!” Marcus is laughing, “we’re not meant to be practicing tackles.”

“I know, I know, I just wanted to see if I could,” you say, half rising and propping yourself up on your elbows.

“Well you can,” and suddenly Marcus is looking at you, full in the face, and his eyes are very, very green, and his lashes are very dark and thick, and it feels like he is giving you permission for a lot of things. “I told you you were strong.”

You open your mouth to say something, but your mind goes blank with want, suddenly all you can think about is how close you are to each other, how big Marcus is, how sweet and lush his skin smells. You can see the pulse leap in his thick neck, feel the rasp of the wiry hairs on his thighs against yours where your legs are tangled together. Marcus’ gaze darts to your opened lower lip, then back to your eyes. He swallows heavily.

“Um…”

“Right, sorry, yeah,”

You get up quickly, feet struggling for purchase on the wet grass, twisting your body away from Marcus so he won’t see the hard on that is pressing insistently against the front of your shorts. Shit. You hook a finger under the loose hem of your rugby shirt, untucking it fully so it hangs down almost to your mid thighs. Better.

You practice for a bit longer, but there’s a weird sort of energy between you now, a tension that there wasn’t before, and even though you’ve enjoyed yourself you’re happy when the other boys start to appear and Sasstica arrives to start formal practice.

“You, boy! MacCunoval! Tuck that shirt back in.”

“Sir.” You’ll just have to make sure you don’t get into any more tackles with Marcus Aquila.

 

_Marcus_

Your leg hurts. Not the usual slow twisting hum, but the darker crampy agony that has you digging your nails into the palms of your hands for relief, biting at your lip. You pushed yourself too hard practicing with Esca before training yesterday. _Esca_. You think about him, laughing in the rain, his hair wetted to a darker hue than normal, rust and bronze against the pale skin of his cheeks and neck. You remember how it felt when he was lying on top of you, the sudden leap of your treacherous body. _Don’t think about that_. You think: it’s worth all the pain in the world, that feeling, the feeling of Esca pressed tight against you. _Don’t think about that_.

Esca is sitting on the other side of the common room to you, eating a piece of toast and playing chess with Prince. His face is stiff with concentration. There are violet smudges under his eyes, and you want to run your thumbs over them, smooth all his worries away. He looks tired. You want him to sleep curled up against you, so you can protect him from everything, even his dreams. Esca takes one of Prince’s rooks, and Prince laughs, and reaches out a hand to ruffle Esca’s hair. Esca smiles. As always it does strange, cruel things to your heart. You look away, quickly. You bite at your thumb. You don’t understand why you feel like this. You don’t understand what could possibly come of it. If Esca was a girl, well, that would be one thing… But… It’s not like you could ever actually _be_ with Esca. Not like that. You wish you could feel about a girl the way you feel about Esca. _You wish_.

You rub absently at your thigh. Sometimes it helps, but there’s always something off about giving massages to yourself. No matter how adept you are at it, how closely you mimic the movements the doctor used, it never feels the same as having someone else’s hands on you, kneading out all the knots of pain. Suddenly an image springs unbidden into your mind, Esca, on his knees before you, head bowed, clever white hands on the aching flesh of your leg. Esca. Touching you. On his knees. Maybe he moves his hands a little higher, maybe he touches…

“Marcus?”

“Uh?” you look up from the book you were pretending to read, heart racing, feeling the blood flushing your face.

“Are you alright?” It’s Esca. Relax. There is no way he can possibly know what you were thinking.

“Yeah, yeah.” You swallow nervously. “It’s just my leg. I think I overdid it a bit yesterday.”

“Oh.” Esca’s mist coloured eyes soften and settle around you. “Is it bad?”

“I’ll be OK.”

He looks like he might want to ask you more, but then he thinks better of it, and nods. He probably wants to ask you how it happened. The truth is, you barely remember yourself. The abiding memory, right after it happened, is how right it felt; those first few moments of the sheets of slicing white pain. Now your outside was mangled to match your inside, your ripped up heart and your torn out soul. Now there was a physical mark on you, to show how much you had lost, your mother and your father. Before, when they’d passed you in the street, people would never have thought: that boy with the long limbs and the green eyes, I bet he is bleeding inside. But now they would know. That you were injured, broken. It was better, later, once you had your Uncle. But still, somehow, the pain feels right, appropriate. </i>I hurt, I am hurting</i>. Esca touches your shoulder briefly.

“Feel better,” he says quietly. And you already do.

For once your sleeplessness is an asset. You lie awake and still under the covers, leg thrumming, mind a jumble of Esca. When you hear the clock in the housemaster’s study distantly chime midnight, you gingerly ease yourself out of bed and tiptoe over to where Lucas is curled up in foetal position against the wall.

“Luke! Luke! It’s time.” You see Lucas’ eyes snap open in the gloom.

“Marcus. Do you ever sleep?”

You shrug, half smile, wait whilst Lucas pulls a jumper on over his pyjama top, and then the two of you creep down the backstairs. Cub is already feeding contentedly on half an egg sandwich, so clearly some boys from your House have made their way out before you.

It’s a clear night. The glow from the moon lights the lawns almost starkly, everything in sharp contrasts of bright silver and dark ebony, and you hobble after Lucas who sets off at a sprint, wanting to be out of view of the boarding house as quickly as possible. The woods seem brighter in every way, more alive, full of rustling mystery. A healthy looking plume of smoke is already rising from the fissure at the top of the cave.

“Aright boys,” says Guernsey as you turn around the bend in the opening and come into the cave’s warm, orange belly. You look around. You look for Esca. He’s almost crouched in the furthest corner, half in shadow. He looks feline, slinky, secretive. For once Prince isn’t lounging alongside him, which gives you a strange feeling of gentle joy.

“Where’s Liathan?” Lucas asks.

“Ah, he’s off on some _secret mission_ ,” Claude says, with a hint of mockery. “Apparently he’s bringing us back a _special treat_ from the woods.”

“I suppose we should count ourselves lucky that Aquila hasn’t gone off on a secret mission into the woods. We all know how well those work out,” Steven says silkily. You feel the same barb of impotent rage, laced with a sharp hook of shame, that you always feel when these boys talk about your father.

“Fuck off, Placidus.” It’s Esca. His voice is cool, ice to the heat in your cheeks.

Did _you_ just tell _me_ to fuck off? MacRuntoval?” Steven asks with exaggerated disbelief. Esca stands. He’s still short, he’s always been short, but you see Steven clock the sudden late bloom of broadness he’s acquired, the strength of his shoulders, the wiry muscles in his arms. He looks hard, compact. He looks dangerous. Your heart thrills.

“Yeah. I did.” He looks Steven full in the eye, unblinking. Steven eventually looks away, shrugs, turns to Claude.

“Well, we should probably get started. God knows how long _le fol_ is going to be running around out in the woods looking for magic mushrooms, or whatever it is he’s doing.” Steven takes over from Prince, reading the customary introduction from Thoreau. Quinton has somehow managed to acquire a bottle of Pernod, and you take a long swig, trying to curl your tongue away from its bitter aniseed tang. But it burns pleasingly around your throat, matching the soaring feeling in your heart you’ve had since Esca stuck up for you.

“This shit is disgusting, Hillary,” Claude says, mock-retching and dragging the back of his hand over his mouth.

“No one’s forcing you to drink it. Stick to Guernsey’s cocoa thermos if you prefer.”

Claude ignores him, and starts to read. You’re so distracted by the nearness of Esca, the snark of his mouth, his proud chin, the way his ears stick out a little from his head, that you miss the beginning of the poem. Something about poetry, and themes. _Heart-mysteries there, and yet when all is said / It was the dream itself enchanted me_. Beautiful Esca.

_“Those masterful images because complete  
Grew in pure mind, but out of what began?  
A mound of refuse or the sweepings of a street,  
Old kettles, old bottles, and a broken can,  
Old iron, old bones, old rags, that raving slut  
Who keeps the till. Now that my ladder's gone,  
I must lie down where all the ladders start  
In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart.”_

The abruptness of the change in tone jars you, cutting uncomfortably close to how you feel about Esca. He’s so fearless and bright and clean and…pure. And you just want to be his friend; to be allowed to be his confidante, his brother, to be close with him. But you also want…those other…things. Wrong things.

Nobody really speaks about homosexuality. You know what it is, and you have thought about what the basic…mechanics…would entail, but it’s not something any of the boys, or staff, or your uncle, ever talks about; or if they do, it’s in brief, derogatory terms. You know almost nothing about it, except that it is a shameful thing, a dark and secret thing, something men have gone to prison for. You don’t really know if it’s even legal now, or not. But you know these boys would make your life miserable if they every found out the thoughts you have about Esca. And his. You can’t even bear to think what they would do to Esca. You remember him down on the grass round the back of the sports pitches that day, curled up with the other boys bundled around him, sunlight on studs, glinting like teeth and claws. Beautiful Esca. You think of things breaking, things that cannot be fixed. So it is, it must be, wrong that you want to do these things with Esca. It would be shameful, dishonourable. He is too good for you. It makes your heart hurt. The foul rag and bone shop of your heart.

Almost as if he can read your thoughts, you catch Esca looking at you, quick and concerned, and you consciously force the drag and pout of your mouth up in to a smile, try and look happy. He likes you, he is your friend. That should be enough. Esca moves as if to come and sit by you, but as he does so there is a commotion at the entrance to the cave, muffled voices and the tinkle of female laughter, and Prince strolls in, looking aggressively smug, trailed by two girls bundled up in thick wool coats and bright hats, cherry coloured for the red head and amethyst for the brunette. You see Quinton and Claude gape at them, wordlessly. Lucas swallows heavily. Guernsey stands up so fast he slams his head, hard, onto the low slope of the cave.

“Gentlemen. Meet Finola, and….”

“Camilla,” the redhead supplies, pulling her hat off in one easy motion to reveal a torrent of fox coloured curls that reach halfway down her back.

“Camilla. This is the pledge class of the Dead Poets’ Society.”

Even Steven looks taken aback, his eyes like saucers. “Hello,” he say eventually, voice unusually stiff and formal, “how do you do?” Only Esca looks unimpressed.

“Hi,” says Finola, smiling shyly. She leans slightly into Prince, nervous, skittish. The other girl – Camilla – looks less unsure. She has a stubborn jut to her jaw that reminds you somehow of Esca. Prince surveys the cave, happy with the impact he has made.

“Come on guys, move up, let girls in. And pass that bottle. The ladies need a drink,” he commands, and not even Steven objects. Prince sets himself down, a girl on each side of him. “Also, guys, I have an announcement to make. In keeping with the spirit of passionate experimentation of the Dead Poets, I'm giving up the name Liathan Prince. From now on, call me Cruachan.”

“Cruachan?” Claude asks in disbelief.

“Yes.” Prince’s eyes flash a challenge. Finola takes a lipstick from her purse, and hands it to Prince, who makes two horizontal red lines down each of his cheeks. “Cruachan. Warrior. God. Right. Are we having this meeting, or what? I’ll start.” He stands, then half bows, sweeping one arm theatrically. “Ladies. In your honour.

_No one's serious at seventeen.  
\- On beautiful nights when beer and lemonade  
And loud, blinding cafés are the last thing you need  
\- You stroll beneath green lindens on the promenade._

_Lindens smell fine on fine June nights!  
Sometimes the air is so sweet that you close your eyes;  
The wind brings sounds - the town is near -  
And carries scents of vineyards and beer. . ._

_\- Over there, framed by a branch  
You can see a little patch of dark blue  
Stung by a sinister star that fades  
With faint quiverings, so small and white…_

_June nights! Seventeen! - Drink it in.  
Sap is champagne, it goes to your head…  
The mind wanders, you feel a kiss  
On your lips, quivering like a living thing…_

_The wild heart Crusoes through a thousand novels  
\- And when a young girl walks alluringly  
Through a streetlamp's pale light, beneath the ominous shadow  
Of her father's starched collar…_

_Because as she passes by, boot heels tapping,  
She turns on a dime, eyes wide,  
Finding you too sweet to resist. . .  
-And cavatinas die on your lips.”_

Prince takes Finola’s hand and presses her pale knuckles to his lips, one eyebrow raised seductively. Finola giggles and blushes, and you see Esca rolling his eyes. You wonder if Esca cares that Prince seems to have a girlfriend. You feel a tight crunching in your chest.

_“You're in love. Off the market till August.  
You're in love. - Your sonnets make Her laugh.  
Your friends are gone, you're bad news.  
\- Then, one night, your beloved, writes..!_

_That night…you return to the blinding cafés;  
You order beer or lemonade. . .  
\- No one's serious at seventeen  
When lindens line the promenade.”_

You notice Camilla looking at you during the poem. She has quick, bright eyes, alive and dancing. When you catch her looking at you, she does not blush or look away, but just smiles broadly, and tilts her head. She is pretty, you suppose. Clear skin and freckles. A cute little upturned nose. But even as you look at her, and smile tentatively in return, you can feel the thunderous iron ore pull of Esca in the corner, can almost hear the clamouring of his blood, the hiss of his breath. Partly she is pretty because _he_ is in the cave, because his presence makes everything more real, infuses everything with more feeling, more colour.

_Esca_

You’ve met Finola before, briefly. She and her parents and brother came for Sunday lunch at the Princes’ during the Christmas holidays. Her father works for Liathan’s father. Not that Liathan’s father appears to do any actual work. He is too rich to need to work. Money begets money. You don’t normally care about that sort of thing, but suddenly your heart is lemon-sharp with jealously, these boys, their wealth, their confidence, the moony eyes that girl made at Liathan all through lunch, and now, worse of all, that other girl, Camilla, batting her eyelashes at Marcus. Marcus doesn’t stand a chance. The other boys are wary of him because he has shown he can take care of himself, defend himself – _slamming Hieron up against the wall of the dormitory, his thick arm pressed against the other boy’s throat_ – but he clearly has no idea how to handle himself with women. He stammers at her. She smiles, tosses her hair, looks down at the ground then up again, giving Marcus the full benefit of coming back into the warmth of her rich hazel eyes. She’ll make mincemeat out of him, most likely. _Not that you care_.

“ _Symptoms of love_ ,” Dacian is saying, smiling broadly at the girls.

_Love is universal migraine,  
A bright stain on the vision  
Blotting out reason._

_Symptoms of true love  
Are leanness, jealousy,  
Laggard dawns;”_

You are not in love with Marcus Aquila. True, you always found elements of him… _attractive_. Even before you were friends. You’ve known for a long time what you are, what you want. And Marcus is a handsome boy: strong, capable hands; a face that can display kindness as well as it can anger; those plump, lush lips, almost out of place upon the masculine squareness of his jaw. And he’s not as much of a bastard as you thought. You…enjoy him. But he still stands for everything you hate; this school, the system, your father. What his father did to your father. What people like him to do people like you.

_“Are omens and nightmares -  
Listening for a knock,  
Waiting for a sign:_

_For a touch of her fingers  
In a darkened room,  
For a searching look.”_

You certainly are not waiting for any sort of sign that Marcus Aquila feels _that_ way about you.

_Take courage, lover!  
Could you endure such pain  
At any hand but hers?”_

And if you were you’d be waiting a long, long time. You know that. You’re not stupid. Camilla has subtly shifted along the rocky ledge to be sitting nearer to Marcus. Her hair is all colours in the dark – ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, saffron. You think of the dull brown of your own hair. You feel suddenly drained of all vibrancy, just the dull black and white of your faded heart. Marcus is looking across at Camilla bashfully, he looks nervous, confused; the way he used to sometimes look at you.

“MacCunoval!” Guernsey is saying. “Your turn! A love poem for the ladies?”

You let your mouth give an ironic twist as you stand.

_“He fumbles at your spirit  
As players at the keys  
Before they drop full music on;  
He stuns you by degrees,_

_Prepares your brittle substance  
For the ethereal blow,  
By fainter hammers, further heard,  
Then nearer, then so slow_

_Your breath has time to straighten,  
Your brain to bubble cool, --  
Deals one imperial thunderbolt  
That scalps your naked soul._

_When winds take Forests in their Paws--  
The Universe is still.”_

Camilla claps appreciatively, cutting off any snide comment Placidus might have been preparing about the fact the poem is about a man. Besides, the poem isn’t about a man. The poem is about God. It has nothing to do with Marcus Aquila; stupid, fumbling, Marcus Aquila, with his eyes full of contradictions and his great paws that take the wind from your lungs.

“I love Emily Dickinson,” Camilla enthuses, looking at you warmly. You miss girls. You miss their softness, their wisdom, their kindness. You miss your sister. You miss your mother. But still you find yourself hating her, for her hair, for her quick mouth, for the way Marcus is looking at her in the firelight. Guernsey is reading:

_“You who never arrived  
in my arms, Beloved, who were lost  
from the start,  
I don't even know what songs  
would please you. I have given up trying  
to recognize you in the surging wave of  
the next moment. All the immense  
images in me -- the far-off, deeply-felt landscape,  
cities, towers, and bridges, and un-  
suspected turns in the path,  
and those powerful lands that were once  
pulsing with the life of the gods--  
all rise within me to mean  
you, who forever elude me.”_

It is difficult to concentrate on what Guernsey is saying, because Camilla is busy using a lipstick to draw across the broad swipes of Marcus’ cheekbones. She is smiling at him, biting her lip in a coquettish approximation of concentration. Marcus just looks awkward, especially when, laughing, she applies some of the greasy paste to the plush pinkness of his lips.

_You, Beloved, who are all  
the gardens I have ever gazed at,  
longing. An open window  
in a country house-- , and you almost  
stepped out, pensive, to meet me. Streets that I chanced  
upon,--  
you had just walked down them and vanished.  
And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors  
were still dizzy with your presence and, startled, gave back  
my too-sudden image. Who knows? Perhaps the same  
bird echoed through both of us  
yesterday, separate, in the evening...”_

Marcus’ mouth is a hot, red mess. Images spike in your head, frenzied, molten. Marcus on his knees, cheeks streaked with scarlet, those plump red lips wrapped around your cock. Pretty girlish lips on such a strong boy’s face. You’re not even sure what it is you’re feeling; lust, disgust, confusion, self pity. You imagine feeding him your cock, slow, then hard, ‘til his eyes water with it; you imagine rubbing it along the outline of his mouth, smudging the lipstick, you imagine him panting, desperate for it, and everywhere there is red, red; the desperate clench of your heart.

Camilla sees your look, mistakes it for something else entirely. With a gentle pat to Marcus’ cheek, she slides off the ledge and almost skips over to you.

“Here, I’ll do you,” she says brightly.

Placidus looks like his is dying, torn between making some comment about how faggy this all is, and wanting her hands on him, on _his_ face, on _his_ lips.

“I don’t want lipstick,” you say coldly.

“Fine,” Camilla is completely untaken aback, she smiles at you, bright, open. “For you, eye pencil. Hold still.” You feel frozen, powerless. You let her touch you. Doug is reading:

_“I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,  
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.  
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,  
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.”_

Camilla is salt-rose, topaz, the fire’s spray. You will only ever be dark things, secret things. You should never have thought otherwise, even for a moment.

_“I love you as the plant that never blooms  
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;  
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,  
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body._

_I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.  
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;  
so I love you because I know no other way_

_than this: where I does not exist, nor you, (in which there is no I, nor you)  
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,  
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.”_

You have to hold your head back, very still, as Camilla works on your eyes, but if you slide your pupils down you can see Marcus looking over at you both as Doug reads the last few stanzas of the poem. It is a look full of meaning, and depth, and warmth. It is a look obviously intended for Camilla. She smoothes one thumb under your eye, and then stands back, hands on hips, and grins at you.

“Lovely,” she says. “You look hot. You look like you should be in the Sex Pistols.” She smiles wirily to herself. “Perhaps that’s not appropriate. You look like a young Byron.”

“He looks like a pouf,” Placidus says derisively. Camilla turns to him, twinkling.

“Oh,” she cocks her head to the side, all innocence, making her eyes go huge and her lips pout. “You won’t be wanting any then? Such a shame. I thought you boys were up for some… _experimentation_.” Placidus flounders on the hook of her stare, starts to blush, swallows awkwardly.

“Maybe some lipstick,” he says, quietly, “just on my face. Like Liathan’s.” Cottia gives you a wink before she trots over to him. Marcus’ eyes follow her, adoring. Hilary stands to read:

_“The fist clenched round my heart  
loosens a little, and I gasp  
brightness; but it tightens  
again. When have I ever not loved  
the pain of love? But this has moved_

_past love to mania. This has the strong  
clench of the madman, this is  
gripping the ledge of unreason, before  
plunging howling into the abyss._

_Hold hard then, heart. This way at least you live.”_

 

 

_Marcus_

You don’t really have words to describe how Esca looks. You’ve never seen a man with make up on before, outside of school plays and the stage makeup they wear in Laurence Olivier films. You’re not allowed magazines or rock music at the Academy, and your Uncle doesn’t own a television, so your awareness of these things is distant, remote. Esca looks incredible. Savage and beautiful, his eyes dark and cruel under the pale slant of his brows. It feels like you have to almost physically tear your eyes away from him and instead look at Camilla as she crosses the cave towards Steven, in order to stop yourself from gaping openly. You’re hard. You feel hot and sticky with desire. You press your hands against the sides of your head in consternation.

Camilla finishes with Steven and stands back to admire her handiwork. He gives her what he clearly hopes is a practiced smile.

“How about some poems about sex?” he asks.

“What would you know about _sex_ , Placidus,” Prince says archly. He coughs into his hand, “ _virgin_.” To his credit, Steven doesn’t miss a beat. He doesn’t even look at Prince, just cocks his head at Camilla.

“There is nothing wrong in taking one’s time. _Ladies_ and Gentlemen, the most obscene Mr David Herbert Lawrence.

_The elephant, the huge old beast,  
is slow to mate;  
he finds a female, they show no haste  
they wait_

_for the sympathy in their vast shy hearts  
slowly, slowly to rouse  
as they loiter along the river-beds  
and drink and browse_

_and dash in panic through the brake  
of forest with the herd,  
and sleep in massive silence, and wake  
together, without a word._

_So slowly the great hot elephant hearts  
grow full of desire,  
and the great beasts mate in secret at last,  
hiding their fire._

_Oldest they are and the wisest of beasts  
so they know at last  
how to wait for the loneliest of feasts  
for the full repast._

_They do not snatch, they do not tear;  
their massive blood  
moves as the moon-tides, near, more near  
till they touch in flood.” _

The boys clap and hoot appreciatively, but Finola is already on her feet. She makes a dismissive sound. “That’s all very well and good, but if you want a _real_ poem about sex, you need to turn to a woman,” she pauses, and smiles lasciviously.

_“As I would free the white almond from the green husk  
So would I strip your trappings off,  
Beloved.  
And fingering the smooth and polished kernel  
I should see that in my hands glittered a gem beyond counting.” _

The boys are almost ecstatic in their applause, but it’s all you can do to give a few limp claps. It takes every ounce of your concentration not to look at Esca, with his sooty eyes and angry mouth. His pale white skin. _As cool as the pale wet leaves of lily-of-the-valley_. Peeling back the green husk from his white almond. _Fingering. Smooth._

You are vaguely aware Camilla has come back to stand by you. She glances at you, sidelong. “I agree with Steven,” she says, “I like poems about _waiting. Come slowly / Eden / Lips unused to thee.  
Bashful, sip thy jasmines,  
As the fainting bee,  
Reaching late his flower,  
Round her chamber hums,  
Counts his nectars -alights,  
And is lost in balms!” _

She lets one arm brush casually against yours, and you are grateful for it, for it acts like an anchor, holding you steady through the storm that is Esca.

 

_Esca_

Marcus stands to read.

_“In scenery I like flat country.  
In life I don’t like much to happen._

_In personalities I like mild colourless people.  
And in colours I prefer gray and brown._

_My wife, a vivid girl from the mountains,  
says, “Then why did you choose me?”_

_Mildly I lower my brown eyes—  
there are so many things admirable people do not understand.”_

Camilla is looking up at him delightedly, as he blushes, looks across at you quickly and awkwardly, looks down. You keep your face impassive, like you’ve had to learn to do, over and over, as life has taken from you everything you’ve ever loved, ever wanted.

“Christ’s sake Aquila!” Hieron is joshing, his tone gentler than his words imply. “We’re meant to be reading poems about sex! That’s just a _love_ poem.”

“Well, maybe I prefer love poems,” Marcus mumbles. He half looks at you again, but you’ve had enough of this charade. You don’t need to stay here and watch whilst Marcus bumbles his way through flirting with some girl. You stand abruptly, and push past the boys to get out of the cave, keeping your eyes narrowed and ahead, ignoring Liathan’s quizzical glance. You walk quickly, out into the night, the woods, letting the cool air caress your face, letting it lap gently against the lump you’ve suddenly found in your throat. You can hear some commotion behind you. You think maybe it’s Liathan come to fetch you back inside. You stride into the woods. You do not look back.

“Esca! Esca!” You recognise the voice as Marcus’, and you speed up, concentrating hard to keep your footing in the silvery darkness of the woods. Marcus makes a lot of noise, crashing through the undergrowth behind you. You feel rage fizzing irrationally through your chest; hot, blistering bubbles of it. “Esca!”

“What?” you stop and spin angrily, and he almost crashes into you with his momentum. He manages to stop himself just in time, and you notice his cheeks are flushed and pink, although whether it’s the exertion of the run or embarrassment at his stupid, clumsy dash through the trees you don’t know.

“What’s wrong?” he asks quietly.

“Nothing’s _wrong_ ,” you retort acidly. “I just didn’t want to sit in the cave and listen to you read love poetry to some girl.” You could almost bite your tongue off the second the words have left your mouth; you’ve said too much, far too much. You don’t want to wait for Marcus to figure out the possible meanings behind what you’ve just said, so you turn away from him, and make to start walking briskly back towards the lawn again. Marcus stops you, wrapping one warm, large hand around your upper arm, and forcibly turning you back round to face him. “Fuck off!” you snarl, twisting in his grip, burning with shame and anger.

“Esca. The poem…it was about….it was about you.”

_Oh._

“It’s like that thing you said, at rugby, you know, that I’m all boring and staid and whatever, and you’re all snarly and controversial, and you didn’t know why I would like you. So it was about that, about how much I…like you. _You.”_

Then Marcus leans down and presses his lips, cool and dry, against yours. It’s a chaste kiss, a brother’s kiss, but it sends a sharp lance of arousal straight down your spine to some place deep inside you, piercing your belly, flaring into the root of your cock. You push him away, angrily, hands braced against the broad, vital expanse of his chest

“Marcus! I’m not just… I’m not your… I’m not going to just stand here and be kissed.” Everything inside you is a raging tidal wave of anger and want, buzzing in your head.

“I’m sorry, I….” Marcus’ ears are aflame.

You push him backwards, hard, so he half stumbles against a tree, staggering and falling so that his face is almost on a level with yours, and then you splay one hand expansively over his jaw, and push your face into his. His lips feel surprisingly soft against yours, plump and overripe, like they might burst from the force of your emotion. He opens his mouth in surprise, and you push your tongue in, following some primal sense of need, not really sure what you are searching for. Then Marcus curls his tongue to meet yours, and the bliss clicks into place inside you, _this_ , this is what you were searching for.

You surge forward, your anger now replaced with a sort of desperate joy, pressing yourself into Marcus, mashing your mouths together so your teeth clash and you almost can’t breathe. Your whole body hums with reward, your head floaty and vague. You haven’t kissed anyone before, not properly, and now you’re surprised you managed to go so long without it. If someone took this away from you, now, you think you might die. Marcus makes a small sound, you can’t really tell if it’s of shock or desire, but it pulls you back into yourself; and you’re suddenly aware that you are _kissing_ Marcus Aquila. In a wood. At the Academy. You move as if to pull away from him, but he lifts one hand up to cup your jaw, and holds you into the kiss; but lighter now, tongues dancing instead of duelling. Holding each other’s faces. He holds you like you are precious, and you let his tongue skim gently over the delicate insides of your mouth, silky and smooth, vulnerable. You allow yourself to relax against the comforting bulk of his body, going soft and boneless, letting him anchor you. Then you feel how hard he is, against your hip. It sends a renewed pulsing of blood straight to your cock, and you exhale heavily, hearing the moan on it. Your body knows what to do, even if you don’t, and you find yourself rutting gently against him, pressing yourselves together, hot, hard, hot. The woods are teaming with life, low and vibrant, and you feel the answering leap in your soul, like something that has been long sleeping opening its eyes, like a night orchid uncurling its plush and hidden petals to the loamy dark air, and you know it’s because of him, _Marcus_.

[Part IV](http://pouxin.livejournal.com/3577.html)

_______________________________________________

**Poetry Credits: Part III**

When Esca is ignoring Marcus: From W.B, Yeats’ ‘ _Father and Child_ ’, 1929

**Dead Poets’ Society: Third Meeting**

Claude Hieron: From W. B. Yeats’ ‘ _The Second Coming_ ’, 1919  
Lucas Dacian: From Robert Lowell’s ‘ _Skunk Hour_ ’, 1959  
Steven Placidus: From W.H. Auden’s ‘ _Death’s Echo_ ’, 1936  
Esca MacCunoval: ‘ _Odi et Amo_ ’ by Catullus, c.60BC  
Liathan Prince: ‘ _Catullus: Odi et Amo_ ’ by Frank Bidart, 1977/83 ( oops, I thought this was from his ’77 collection, but turns out it may well be from 83’s ‘ _The Sacrifice_ ’ – crap! I promise this is the only time I will break my 1979 deadline! )  
Marcus Aquila: ‘ _Hate_ ’ by James Stephens, 1917  
Doug Cheef: ‘ _Love is My Sin_ ’ by William Shakespeare, c.1609  
John ‘Guernsey’ Hunter: ‘ _Choose_ ’ by Carl Sandburg, 1916  
Quinton Hilary: From Rudyard Kippling’s ‘ _The Ballad of East and West_ ’, 1889

I just love how well ‘ _The Ballad of East and West_ ’ applies to Cannon Esca and Marcus (perhaps less in this AYU version). Such a great fit!

 

**Dead Poets’ Society Fourth Meeting**

Claude Hieron: From W.B. Yeats’ ‘ _The Circus Animals' Desertion_ ’, 1939  
Liathan Prince: _‘Novel’_ by Arthur Rimbaud, 1870 (translated from the French by Wyatt Mason)  
Lucas Dacian: ‘ _Symptoms of Love_ ’ by Robert Graves, 1961  
Esca MacCunoval: ‘ _He Fumbles At Your Spirit_ ’ by Emily Dickinson (c. 1830–1886; I think not published til 1924!)  
John ‘Guernsey’ Hunter: ‘ _You Who Never Arrived_ ’ by Rainer Maria Rilke, c.1913 (translated from the German by Stephen Mitchell)  
Doug Cheef: ‘ _Sonnet XVII_ ’ by Pablo Neruda, 1924 (translated from the Spanish by Mark Eisner)  
Quinton Hilary: ‘ _The Fist’_ by Derek Walcott, 1976  
Steven Placidus: ‘ _The Elephant is Slow to Mate’_ by D. H. Lawrence, 1909  
Finola Seal: ‘ _Aubade_ ’ by Amy Lowell, 1915  
Cottia Valeria: _’Come Slowly’_ by Emily Dickinson (c. 1830–1886; first published in 1924)  
Marcus Aquila: ‘ _Passing Remark’_ by William Stafford, 1951


	4. Odi et Amo (4/7) | Esca/Marcus | NC-17

**Title** : Odi et Amo  
 **Rating** : NC-17  
 **Pairing** : Esca/Marcus  
 **Summary** : Esca and Marcus are at an all boys boarding school in the UK in the 1970s. They hate each other, until they both become members of the newly formed Dead Poets' Society... Adolescent ardor follows.  
 **Word count** : ~57k  
 **Warnings** : Explicit sex; language; (some) homophobic hate speech; reference to self harm; some (brief) violence

_Marcus_

You are kissing Esca MacCunoval. You’re not really sure how it happened, and you know it’s a terrible idea, but now it’s happening you also know there is no way you could ever stop it. The bark of the tree is rough against your back, but Esca is at once both softer and firmer, pressed hard into you so you can feel every shiver and twist of his body. He looks like some sort of woodland sprite in the moonlight, hair tufting unevenly around his head, the shocking blackness of his kohl rimmed eyes. He is too beautiful. You hurt with the joy and the confusion of it.  It’s sort of angry and clumsy at first, but then he lets you soften the kiss, and something languid and smooth starts to uncurl in your belly. It’s very different from when you kissed Lila. You don’t know if it’s because Esca’s different, fiercer, taking what he wants; or because you feel differently, because Esca is your friend, because you… _feel_ so much for him. Esca moans gently against your lips, and the sound shoots straight to your cock, making it draw up and stiffen with need. Part of you wants to gently trail your fingers down the sides of Esca’s precious, wonderful face; and part of you wants to turn him roughly, so _he_ is pressed up against the tree, and push your cock against the swell of his ass and bite at his neck. You want to be tender, you want to be brutal. The kiss trembles between the two extremes on a tightrope of longing.

You hear some rustling in the undergrowth in front of you and Esca springs away, breaking the warm wonderment of the kiss with a suddenness that leaves you half gasping from the loss of it. Claude emerges from the gloom.

“Where did you boys run off too? Have you got a secret stash of something?” The beginnings of suspicion start to draw across his heavy features. You rub the back of your hand across your mouth, suddenly remembering the lipstick, which must be everywhere by now. You glance quickly at Esca, and see it’s all over his mouth too, dark and flushed in the moonlight. _Shit_.

“Yeah,” Esca says quickly, as if sensing your concern. “I’ve got some weed. Do you want some?”

It’s a calculated risk. Claude and Esca have never been friends, and if Claude decides to tell the Master then there is a good chance that Esca could be expelled. But if Claude guessed what you were really doing in the woods…well…. Claude looks surprised and impressed.

“Excellent. Go on then.”

Esca starts to rummage in his pocket, taking the opportunity to adjust his trousers so Claude won’t see the proud jut of his erection.

“I’m going to…uh…I’m going to go back to the dorm,” you manage. There’s no way you can stand around in the woods with Claude and Esca smoking a spliff, not when your heart feels like it might explode out of your chest.

Esca gives you a strange, sideways look.

“Suit yourself,” he says, casually. He turns his back on you, turning to face Claude, pale hands quick and nimble in the moonlight as he fiddles with some cigarette papers. You don’t know how he can stand there, so calm and collected, when it feels like your whole world had narrowed down to this one bright point of time and sensation, Esca, you, in the woods. You feel like you have nothing and everything to say, all at once.

“Yeah,” Claude sniggers, “You’d better not stay here in case Camilla pounces on you. Doubt your secret girlfriend would like that.” He winks broadly at Esca. “Aquila is, like, in love with this girl or something. He told me himself.”

You see Esca’s narrow back stiffen, but he says nothing except a noncommittal “hm”.

You can feel the blood filling your face as rapidly as it is leaving your cock.

“I’m not… I don’t…” you being, tongue feeling thick and clumsy in your mouth.

“Ah, go on,” Claude waves a hand at you, dismissive. “Aquila’s too straight for this kind of stuff anyway,” he adds, holding Esca’s tobacco for him as he adds some weed to the joint. “Americans. But not you, MacCunoval. You’re a dark horse, aren’t you? I guess you’re alright.”

You can’t see Esca’s face, and you’re glad. But as you walk back slowly to the House, it’s all you can see. Esca’s face. Esca’s lips. Esca’s smoky tragic eyes. You think: _You kiss a beautiful mouth / and a key turns the lock of your fear_. You can feel your heart, beating.

You worry you’ve offended him in some way, leaving it so up in the air after the… _event_ , but when he comes into French the next day and you call “Esca!” before you can stop yourself, he comes and sits by you. He gives you a brief, inscrutable look, then opens his book bag. He looks relaxed, at ease. He behaves to you as if nothing has happened, with no trace of awkwardness. You can hardly stand it. You spend the whole lesson chancing quick glances at him, hardly listening to the French Master at all, even though French is a class you struggle with and normally you concentrate like a train. Instead you pass the time just snatching little glimpses of Esca’s skin out of the corner of your eyes.

Esca sighs and pulls at the neck of his shirt under his tie. You always think of Esca’s skin as smooth, but you notice the faint shadow of dirty bronze stubble around his upper lip and chin. You all tend to notice each other’s gradual, awkward progression from boys to young men with amusement and mockery, although it’s never something which has concerned you – you’ve always been tall and broad, always had an easy, low voice, never suffered from spots or anything like that. But for some reason, noticing this in Esca, that he is… _manly_ , makes your heart speed up and your throat thicken. You want to pinch yourself for being so moony and ridiculous. You can’t stop looking at him though. He hitches one leg up over the other and leans back on his chair, and his trouser leg snags and catches, revealing a half inch of pale skin above the top of the regulation school navy sock. Just the sight of this skin, pale and golden furred, unintentionally bared, is enough to start the blood pooling in your groin.

What is wrong with you? You force yourself to concentrate on the lesson instead. You need to stop thinking about Esca like this. You need to be relaxed, normal, just like him. You hope he will never mention the kiss. Neither of you will. And things will go on as before. You’re reading _Les Miserables_ , and Steven is labouring over the translation of a particular passage:

“How did it happen that their lips came together? How does it happen that birds sing, that snow…melts, that the rose…uh…unfolds, that the dawn…whitens… behind the…stark?...shapes of trees on the, uh, quivering…summit of the hill? A kiss, and all was said.”

You can’t help yourself, you look across at Esca. Part of you thinks: _don’t look at me. If you don’t look at me now then maybe there is still time, I can escape, I am not done for_. And part of you thinks: _look at me_. Esca looks at you.

 

_Esca_

Marcus acts as if nothing different or important has happened between you. You knew he would do that. You _knew_. And you don’t care.

Sometimes you feel as if you are just the bare bones of a person, stripped back by loss and loneliness, with only a few scraps of flesh and tendon holding everything together. You certainly can’t afford to waste any of the little strips of you that still feel pain and sadness and longing on someone like Marcus Aquila, someone who will never be brave enough to feel what you feel in return, who will always just blindly follow tradition and protocol, _just like his father_. Marcus is not like you, and it would be foolish to think he ever could be. Still, you find yourself absently doodling poetry in your notebook in the common room; using high, vaulting script, curled round with little sketches of vines and sparks of fire.

_Last night, when some one spoke his name,  
From my swift blood that went and came  
A thousand little shafts of flame  
Were shiver'd in my narrow frame.  
O Love, O fire! once he drew  
With one long kiss my whole soul thro'  
My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew._

“Maccers?”

“Huh?” You look up, almost dropping your notebook in your haste to slam it shut. It’s Liathan. He looks down at you quizzically.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing!” you retort hotly, feeling a furious blush start to course along the ridges of your cheekbones. “Just some notes. For prep.”

Liathan holds out his hand. “Let me see. It looked cool. Is it art stuff?”

“No!” you reply, frantically, clasping the book against your chest.

“Right. OK.” You can see Liathan is trying desperately not to look affronted, to look like he doesn’t care. But he is failing. You feel bad.

“It’s just – it’s not finished yet. I’ll show you later.”

“Right.” He looks at you for a long, slow beat, dark eyes narrow but all-seeing. “Well, so, it’s almost Easter Holidays. So I wondered… you’d be very welcome to come to my family’s house again. For some of it. Or all of it. Or, whatever.” Liathan shrugs expansively, and deliberately looks off to the side.

“Thanks,” you say in a small voice. You still find it difficult to deal with kindness. After everything that happened.

“If you want to come. I did rather think you might have made plans to spend Easter with your bumchum Aquila,” Liathan adds snidely.

“He’s not my _bumchum_.”

“OK, whatever.” Liathan looks purposefully unconcerned, but you still feel irrationally irritated.

“He’s my friend. I’m allowed to have other friends.”

Liathan looks a little surprised by the strength of your reaction.

“Of course. You just seem very _close_ that’s all.”

“Oh, you know what, fuck off,” you say crossly, rising from your seat and barging his shoulder as you storm out of the common room, still tightly holding your notebook. You know part of your anger rises from the fact that _you_ had kind of expected – hoped – that Marcus might ask you to spend the Easter holidays with him. He knows you haven’t got anywhere else to go. But he hasn’t. Of course.

Later you worry that you’ve upset Liathan. He’s your only proper friend here, really. You shouldn’t have been so short with him, and in the common room, where other people were around. You know from experience he isn’t someone who takes being belittled lightly. But later that evening there’s a beautifully wrapped box of Pralus chocolates on top of your tuck box, and a little note written in Liathan’s fine sloping hand. _‘Je suis désolé. Je suis un idiot. Nous sommes tous ravis de vous voir. Espérons que vous voulez venire. LP’_

You’re walking back to your dorm after super when Marcus sticks his dark head around the door to his own dormitory and sees you.

“Esca!” He reaches out to grasp your wrist with one of his blunt brown hands and pulls you into the entrance, shielded from view by the half open door. Then he takes your other hand in his, and squeezes. You stand like that for a little while, barely a hand’s width inbetween you, Marcus holding your wrist and your hand, your pulse crashing and shuddering against his. You squeeze back and he smiles at you, bashfully. You think of yourself as a practical person, logical, right-thinking. But you can’t help but notice that he is just _so handsome_. Film-star handsome, with his face all a contradiction of rugged and pretty; strong-featured, plush-mouthed, those devastating sooty lashes.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

He smells good too, not like regulation school soap and slightly stale uniform like most of the boys, but of the outdoors:grass and leather and earth.

“So, uh, I was wondering…” Marcus starts, awkwardly, still holding on to you with both hands. “If you wanted to come and stay with me at my Uncle’s for a bit over Easter?”

“Oh. Um… I kind of… I said to Liathan that I was going to stay with him.”

“Oh. Oh, OK.” Marcus’ face drops and his eyes practically droop with disappointment. It’s almost comedic, really, but it makes your heart hurt a little.

“But, uh, I could come to yours for a bit too? It would be better, really. I don’t want to impose on the Princes for the full four weeks.” Marcus grins at you.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. No, I’d like that.”

“My Uncle says you can invite your sister if you want,” Marcus adds, and you try not to think _he is thoughtful_ and _he really cares about me_ but it’s hard.

“Oh, thanks, but she’s staying with a friend of hers from St James and The Abbey. Plus I think they’d be a bit weird about her staying at a boy’s house.”

Marcus laughs.

“I can assure you your sister’s virtue is quite safe with me.”

“Is _my_ virtue safe with you?” you chance, curling your fingers against his palm where he is still holding your hand. You enjoy watching Marcus blush tomato red, the tops of his ears aflame.

“Yes!”

“I hope not.” You smile at him crookedly, your pulse thumping with a kind of nervous violent energy. He must – he can’t expect you to carry on pretending like there’s nothing between you, not after he’s just grabbed your arms and manhandled you into his dormitory to ask you to come and stay with him at his house.

Marcus gives you a funny sort of smile. “Esca – “ he begins in his ‘serious’ voice, but then Dacian comes into the dormitory and he shuts off abruptly, dropping both of your arms. You discuss the arrangements further, but Marcus seems stilted and awkward; you guess because of Dacian, sprawled across his bed and reading a Le Carre novel. Still. Soon you and Marcus will be away from everyone else, away from The Academy. Just the two of you. Alone. The possibilities seem so vast they give you a delicious sliding sickness like vertigo.

 

_Marcus_

The Easter holidays in your Uncle’s sprawling, and largely empty, household give you plenty of time to think. And so you think. About you. But mainly about Esca. About you and Esca. At first you worry about the conversation you had at the end of term. _“Is my virtue safe with you?...I hope not.”_ You think how that must not – _can not_ – happen. You wonder how you can undo the kiss, go back to when Esca was just your friend, and everything was simple. Although you know it was never simple in your head.

Then you allow yourself a few dark, delicious days of running through the possibilities of if the unthinkable thing did happen. How it might happen. What it might entail. You figure you might as well work it out of your system. You hole up in the hayloft above the barn and touch yourself, thinking of Esca, over and over and over again; in a way you haven’t since the summer you were 12 and first fully mastered the art of onanism; touch yourself ‘til you feel fat and drowsy and raw with it. The sweet smell of the straw, the rain thrumming against the old tin roof of the barn. The ghost of Esca in your arms, the imagined snarl of his teeth against your neck; his narrow waist, his high ass. Esca naked in the hayloft like he is in the showers after rugby. Wet from the rain. Lying down with you in the hay. Lying with you in the hay. The clutch of his ribs, the hard flat plains of his belly. His cock nestled in its own corn-coloured thatch of hair. Straw coloured; soft like straw; sweet like straw. You think how it would feel to put your mouth there. You think how it might smell. How it might taste. _O taste and see_! You beat your previous personal best by some way.

Then you start to worry that you’ve over thought the whole thing entirely. Esca probably doesn’t feel that way about you at all. You’ve probably misinterpreted the conversation you had with him. You’ve been so distracted by your own burgeoning feelings for Esca, and how new and wonderful and horrifying and terrible it all is, that you haven’t really thought - not properly - about whether it is so new and wonderful and terrifying and terrible for him. You do now. You wonder now if he’s kissed other boys. Not just you. You wonder about him and Prince. You think about the way they touch each other, casually, easily. You think about how you can’t touch Esca without it feeling like burning, like it’s turning your heart inside out. You think about Prince’s dark, sardonic, knowing looks. His clever mouth. You think about him making Esca laugh. You think about how you never know what to say, what to do, how to make Esca smile for you. You think about how much Esca used to hate you. You hope that has changed, fervently. You hope, you hope.

 

“What’s up with you, boy?” Uncle Aquila asks you. “You’re moping around the house like a kicked dog. Why don’t you go and saddle up Vipsania? The fresh air would do you good.”

You shrug, listlessly.

“OK”

Uncle Aquila regards you intently over the tops of his reading glasses.

“If I didn’t know it to be almost impossible, I’d say you were acting like a young man in love. And miserably in love, at that.”

“I…well….I…” you stutter, feeling your heart give a desperate twist of alarm.

“Ha. Thought as much. Well, well done you for managing to find a girl whilst cloistered up at the Academy. It’s more than your father or I ever managed, let me tell you.”

“It’s…um…she’s the sister of a friend,” you say, quietly.

“Hmmm. Is that so. She’s not the MacCunoval girl, is she? The one who you asked could come and stay?”

“No!” you half shout, alarmed by the mere linking of Esca’s name with your supposed love interest.

Uncle Aquila looks amused. “Hmph. Well, if you say so. Why so unhappy then? What has this young lady done to upset my favourite nephew?”

“I’m your only nephew, Uncle.”

“And that’s why you’re my favourite. So. Why all the sighing and moping?”

“I think she might like someone else.”

“Well then, she’s a chit and a fool. A clever, handsome young man like yourself. I’m sure you could take your pick, like your father before you.”

You rub at your leg uneasily. You think about all the things about you that are unattractive. _Retard cripple_. “It’s more than that too… It’s not really…appropriate… I…. Nothing will ever happen,” you finish miserably.

Your Uncle winks at you. “Sure it’s not the MacCunoval girl?”

“No,” then you look up at him, sharply. “What went on between my father and Carter MacCunoval , anyway? At The Academy? What did Dad do to him?”

Uncle Aquila regards you levelly for a long moment. “My brother wasn’t always the nicest of men, Marcus, that’s true. And The Academy was – well – you know what it is. And it was worse in those days too. The beatings, the canings.” He narrows his eyes at you. “Other things. Worse things. It didn’t make for… Let’s just say it tended to bring out some of the nastier parts of our natures. All of us. And Flavius was always a tough sort, had a hard side to him. I was a few years above him, as you know, so I don’t know all the details of what went on with him after I left, but I know enough. I won’t try and defend his treatment of MacCunoval. But he grew up, changed, met your mother. I want you to know your father was a good man, Marcus, an honourable man. And he loved you very much. He was always soft with you. You and your mother – you brought out all the kind things in him.”

“Esca was pretty angry about it,” you say after a while, looking down at your hands, clenching and unclenching in your lap, at the dolphin signet ring. You don’t look up at your Uncle. “He said…he said Dad hit his father once and ripped open his ear. He… he pretty much hated me for the first four years at the Academy because of all the stuff with our fathers.”

“Well, you’ve obviously managed to overcome it. I must admit, I was surprised you became friends. But I’m pleased. And it can’t be easy for the MacCunoval boy, at a school like that. Carter MacCunoval has quite the reputation. He’s very well respected in a lot of circles, you know. Now war has gone so terribly out of fashion, he’s rather a cult hero. Although I bet they don’t talk of that side of things much at The Academy.” He gives a short staccato laugh.

“No,” you say. Then, in a mumble, “he’s probably my best friend.”

“Well, I shall look forward to meeting him. Even if his sister isn’t coming.” Your Uncle gives you another mischievous grin, and for a minute you wonder if he somehow knows, knows all the dark and frenzied desires in your heart, knows about Esca. But he can’t know. He’d throw you out of the house.

 

_Esca_

If Liathan is bothered that you’re leaving his house five days early to go to Marcus’, he doesn’t show it. The cool mask is back up, the guarded smile.

“Oh, cherie, we will ‘ave one of the drivers take you,” Liathan’s mother (“call me Maman”) offers silkily, on the morning of your departure.

“It’s about 100 miles,” you say, appalled.

She waves one jewelled hand languidly. “’Ees no matter.”

“It’s fine, honestly,” you mumble, “I’ll get the train. It’s all arranged.”

“Aquila, hmm?” Liathan’s father is actually some sort of titled gentry, Viscount something-or-other – his great-grandfather was the Lord Privy Seal – and you have no idea what to call him.

“Yes, Sir.”

“I remember his father from school.”

“Isn’t ‘ee the American one?” Liathan’s mother asks, “the one ‘oo went mad in the war?”

“That’s the chap. Went charging off into the jungle, lost a whole unit of men, no one ever heard from them again. Terrible business.” Liathan’s father turns his attention back to the financial papers. If either of them are aware of your father’s involvement in Vietnam they are too tactful to say anything, but you find yourself suddenly without any appetite, and hurry back up to your room to pack.

 

You realise this is the first time Marcus will see you of school uniform, and you suddenly become almost paralysed with what to wear. Casual? Smart? Trendy? You barely have any clothes, so it’s hardly like you’re spoiled for choice, but… Then you wonder if you should do something with your hair. You have to have a regulation short back and sides at The Academy, but you’ve let it grow a little longer in the holidays and now you question whether you should try and do something with it. You’re still debating this when Liathan’s mother waltzes into the bedroom in a cloud of expensive smelling perfume, dark eyes flashing. You start in front of the mirror as if you’ve been caught helping yourself to the family silverware, and immediately turn your attention back to your half-packed trunk.

“Ah,” she says, looking at you fondly, “‘Ees difficult, l’amour.”

“What?” you ask, so startled your forget to be on your best behaviour. ( _“What? What? Common little oik. It’s ‘pardon’.”_ )

“Love. Very difficult. Per’aps particularly for you, Esca.” She looks at you measuredly. “For me, also. Me and you,” she flaps a hand between you, “we are the same. We are both from a different world to them,” she gestures out the room. “Which makes eet difficult. No one likes eet when people like us are with people like them. And no one likes eet when you like someone in a way which is…hmmm… _different_.” You stare at her horrified, wondering if – and if so, how – she can possibly know these things about you; but she suddenly changes track. “You know, I found out, very early on in our marriage, that James ‘ad been cheating on me.”

You stare at her, shocked

Yes, yes. With some girl ‘ee knew from before. A rich, Eenglish girl, like ‘eem. She ees older. She ees not as pretty as me. Still. It broke my ‘eart.”

“What…what did you do?” you manage.

“I shot ‘eem.”

“ _What?_ ”

“I shot ‘eem. ‘Ee always ‘as all these guns just lying around the ‘ouse, for the pheasants and the grouse and all the other leetle birds. So I picked one up and I shot ‘eem with it. I was aiming for ‘ees balls, ‘ee is lucky. I got ‘ees leg instead, ees why ‘ee walks with a limp. Just think. A few inches to the right and there ees no Jamie, no Monty, no Louis, no Liathan. Pouf!” She clicks her fingers in the air and laughs delightedly. “But I am a crap shot. I miss. Lucky for my darling. Obviously ‘ee is very sorry. ‘Ee never do eet again.”

You look at her in slightly stupefied amazement. “Is that true?”

She half shrugs, gives you a brilliant smile. “Ees true enough. Anyways, what I am saying ees, ‘owever much you love someone, you don’t take any of their shit. Always they will try, with _la connerie_ , men. But you just say _non_. Or you…” she mimes pointing a gun at your groin and laughs again. “Especially you, Esca. You are like another son to me. Now. So you don’t let thees Aquila boy ‘urt you, no?”

You didn’t feel it was possible for you to feel more amazed than you were already, but you do. “How did you… How did…?” you stammer.

“Ah, now, what ees the Eenglish expression again? To me, eet ees as clear as the nose on your face.”

“And you don’t… you don’t, erm….”

“Oh, bof!” She shrugs. “We are what we are. Chacun à son goût. These things, they go een and out of fashion. I ‘ave never ‘ad much time for fashion. But I ‘ave plenty of time for love. Now come ‘ere and give me a kees goodbye.”

You let her draw you into her embrace. And even though she smells of Dior perfume and hair spray, and your mother smelt like baking bread and lavender, for a moment you almost feel as though you are in her arms instead, and you feel the twist of loss so keenly in your belly it makes you gasp from it, as if someone has punched you right in the guts, right where the old scar is, the scar that marks where you and her were once one flesh. Your mother. But the pain is sweet, as well as sorrowful. You never thought your heart could hold love like this again: Liathan, his mother. _Marcus_.

 

Marcus meets you off the train, and he looks so handsome in the spring sunlight that you want to take him in your arms and squeeze him into you so tight that neither of you can breathe. But he’s standing next to an old man with a shock of white hair and periwinkle blue eyes who you take to be Uncle Aquila, so you content yourself with clapping him on the back, enjoying the way his eyes soften and melt upon you. The car ride to the house is purgatory. You can feel the hairs on your forearms prickle at Marcus’ nearness, as if they are straining to touch him. His smell seems even stronger outside The Academy, his Marcus smell. He smells like hay. You want to press your nose into the crook of his neck and breathe and breathe and breathe.

His uncle’s house is impressive. Although not half as grand as the Prince’s country pile, it’s still large and old, if slightly ramshackle. It looks…homely, despite its size. Honeysuckle is starting to bloom along the porch and a cat stalks across the yard. But it’s hard to take any of this in when all you can concentrate on is the nearness of Marcus. The minute you’re in the guest bedroom, you push him, hard, back against the door, fitting your body against his, pressing your mouth against the plushness of his lips.

“Woah, Esca!” Marcus is laughing, bracing one arm lightly against your chest.

“What?” You feel spiky with need, your nerves clang and jangle with it. Not being near Marcus, not being pressed up against each other, skin to skin, it makes your heart feel swimmy with something like sadness. When you’re touching, everything feels better. Apart from your cock, which is so hard it’s almost painful.

“Just…you know…,” he shrugs, then looks down at his feet, bashful. You feel a sudden hot stab of anger at his rejection, swiftly followed by embarrassment, and then fear. After all, Marcus has never really given you an indication that he feels things as strongly as you do. You’ve been foolish to assume that he wants you in the same way that you want him.

Oh, but you want him. Even as he doesn’t want you. _Ignorant fish that even / wants the fly while writhing._

You spend the rest of the day exploring the grounds. Marcus shows you his uncle’s horses, and you pet them for a while. Their dark, liquid eyes and warm, sweet breath. You like the way they arch into your hand when you find the sweet spot just behind their ears. So strong and noble, big, yet gentle. You look over at Marcus.

“I can try teaching you to ride, if you like?”

You laugh at little at that. “Sure, sounds like fun.”

You watch Marcus for a little while first, on his horse Vipsania. You enjoy watching him ride. He looks careful, concentrated, all steely thighs and gentle hands. Then it’s your turn.

“She’ll go easy on you, she knows you’re a virgin,” Marcus laughs, patting the proud arc of Vipsania’s neck, and you give him a pointed look.

She doesn’t go easy on you. Within five minutes your thighs are almost in spasm, your spine is creaking in protest, and your arse feels like someone’s repeatedly beat it with a board. You wonder how Marcus manages, with his leg injury. You can only assume it gets easier with practice. A lot easier. You had a romantic notion that within a few hours you’d be galloping joyfully over the countryside, clearing brooks and fallen logs with ease, but here you are, barely able to stay seated whilst you plod around a sand school.

“Rise into the trot,” Marcus is shouting.

“I’m trying!”

“Just relax.”

“I can’t bloody relax, I’m worried I’m going to fall off any minute and then this beast is going to trample me to death,” you hiss through gritted teeth. Marcus grins at your broadly, looking impossibly handsome, which does nothing to brighten your mood.

“You’re doing a lot better than you think you are. You’re a natural.”

After a while, you do relax, and by the end you’re almost enjoying it. The strong ripple of Vipsania’s sleek muscles between your thighs, as if the two of you are one great swift being; the way she responds so quickly to your every physical signal, the tiniest tightening of your calves at her belly, the slightest tug against the soft velvet of her mouth. By the time Marcus helps you dismount, you’re sorry to have finished, although the feel of Marcus’ wide, heavy hands on your hips has its own set of pleasures. As soon as you’re back on solid ground, Marcus steps away from you quickly, hands clenching at his sides, and you try to ignore the flare of hurt in your chest. Marcus is your friend. You must be happy with that.

 

_Marcus_

Teaching Esca to ride requires a supreme act of concentration. You force yourself to watch what he is doing wrong, and correct him, not just spend every minute admiring the supple leanness of his thighs and the high, proud lines of his ass. By the time you help him dismount you’re half hard, and the way he staggers slightly and leans back against your chest as his feet touch the ground doesn’t help matters. You step away quickly.

Esca grimaces and straightens gingerly. “I don’t think I’ll be able to walk straight for a week,” he mutters, “poor abused arse.”

“Oh, right,” you manage. Other images come unbidden into your mind, generally featuring Esca’s poor abused ass in vivid technicolour, and you feel your face begin to heat up. “Shall we go to the pub?” you say quickly, “there’s one just down the road where I reckon we can get served, and my uncle won’t expect us for dinner until 7.”

 

The pub is picture postcard pretty, all dark beams and low ceilings.

“Why don’t you go and sit down in the garden and I’ll bring us some beer?” you ask.

“I can buy my own beer,” Esca says, bristling.

“Oh, it’s not that, it’s just…” you fade off, uncertain.

“Ah. You look older than me.”

“Right.” For a minute you worry Esca will take offence at that too, but he grins widely and raises his arms.

“It’s true, it’s true, shrimp that I am. I can’t argue with that.”

“You’re hardly a shrimp.”

“No?”

“No.” Your eyes meet for a long hot moment, and you can feel the jolt of your blood stammering in your throat. “Right. Beer.”

 

The evening sunlight makes a soft, smeary mess of honey out of Esca’s hair. It’s got longer since the end of term, you notice, strands of it dribbling into his ears, and smudging at his eyes. You can’t really believe he is here, sitting with you, near your home, talking with you, being with you, _liking_ you. You can’t really believe the gods, who have taken so much from you, would give you this one impossibly generous gift: Esca. Glorious Esca. Although you know their gift is a white elephant, in a way, a double edged sword. You want more, you cannot have it. Should not even want it. You pause before you ask, but then ask anyway, wanting to be close with him.

“What’s the story with your dad?”

“You know the story,” Esca mutters, looking intently at the amber bubbles rising through his pint.

“I know what people say.”

Esca is silent for a long beat, and you begin to think he will not answer.

“He left The Academy. Then to Sandhurst, like we’re all _meant_ to,” he pauses, raises a conspiratorial eyebrow at you, “Then the army. Then he met my mother. She was quite…political. Her family was wealthy, bohemian. I guess it was a strange match, but they… they loved each other very much. Anyway, when the Vietnam war broke out, both my parents felt very strongly that it was completely unjustifiable, that it was wrong.” Another pause, “I know a lot of Americans did too.”

You shrug, study your pint.

“Anyway, they took part in a lot of the protests over here, although I imagine it wasn’t anything like the protests in the US. My dad was reasonably senior by then, in the army. It was quite controversial, his being involved so visibly in an anti-war movement. I don’t know the ins and outs of it, whether it was before he and my mam announced they were going to Vietnam or afterwards, but he was eventually discharged. Far from honourably. Then they went over to Vietnam, to protest there, get involved with…. I don’t know. Stuff. And they died. You know, I don’t really know…I…”

Esca scratches at the back of his hair, looking miserable. You meet the welcome summer storm of his eyes.

“I don’t know with my dad either. What happened. I don’t even really know whether or not he died. For all I know, Placidus is right and he’s running some insane little fiefdom deep in the jungle where the villagers revere him as a God.” Esca half smiles at that. “I know some people say he went mad, that he killed all those men by doing something…stupid. But I have to believe he had a reason for going in to the jungle, that he knew what he was doing, that there was a point to it… I have….” You fade off, feeling the old familiar ache start inside your chest, mirroring the nagging pain of your leg. After a while you add: “It’s terrible, isn’t it, the not knowing?” Esca nods, silently. You put your hand on his, cool from his pint glass. “I think in some ways it’s the worst thing.”

“Yes,” he says, softly, “it’s always the worst thing. Not knowing.”

And he shifts his fingers so they interlink with yours, keeping his eyes on you the whole time. Cool, grey eyes, slipping and sliding over you like mist, so your skin prickles and sighs, luxuriating in their soft wetness, their all-encompassing relief.

 

_Esca_

You lie stiff in the unfamiliar bed, awash with emotion. What would your father think of you, lying here in the Aquila family household? Drinking their wine and eating their food. Making small talk with Flavius’ brother. What would he think of you loving his son? You shift onto your side. It is no use thinking of these things. They are enough to drive a man mad. You hear a creak in the corridor outside your room, and then a moan as the door reluctantly sighs open.

“Marcus?”

“Yes.” It’s a whisper. You feel the bed dip as it adjusts to his weight. “Hi. I couldn’t sleep.” The quilt drags across you, and you let Marcus take some for himself.

“Me neither. It’s all that illicit beer.”

“Hmmmm.”

You can sense rather than feel him stretch out beside you, and you are careful not to touch him, waiting instead to see what he might do. But he just lays there. And then he talks. So you lie and talk for a long time. About your fathers, your mothers, The Academy; then loss, hope, poetry, love, life. You try to keep your eyes open as long as you can, not wanting this warm, unexpected intimacy in the dark with Marcus to end. You feel yourself losing your grip on the conversation, feel it taking the meandering twists and flights into fantasy that talk does when you are too tired to hold it fully in your mind anymore, however much you may want to; and then at some point you lose the fight and fall into the thick velvet of sleep.

In the morning Marcus is fitted tight in to your back, one burly arm draped around your midriff, forehead butted into the tender nape of your neck. It’s strange, being this close to someone. You are so unused to anyone touching you, holding you, sleeping with you in their arms. You barely have time to register this, the oddness of it, the joy and the fear of it, before you feel the unmistakable prod of his erection against your arse. Your own response is immediate and dizzyingly intense. You’re so turned on so quickly, you wonder if you might be able to come just from rutting yourself a few times against the starchy hardness of the sheets. You shift experimentally, turning your prick into the bed and grinding your arse against Marcus in the process. Marcus snuffles awake, and immediately disentangles himself from you, almost jumping from your bed.

“Morning!” he half shouts, with forced perkiness.

You roll to face him, letting the sheets ride down low on your hips, too sleepy and horny to care about this new slight. You blink at him.

“Hi.”

Marcus stares at you in consternation, his eyes flitting nervously from your bare chest to your mouth to the waistband of your pyjamas. He licks his lips. You think: he wants me. You think: how can I be wrong about this? You think: I _know_. You think: I must be wrong about this.

“Breakfast?” Marcus suggests brightly.

 

So it continues. You spend your days playing board games, or riding, or mucking about with a rugby ball, your afternoons in the pub, your evenings dining with the legendary Uncle Aquila, and your nights lying talking in your bed in the guest room, talking but never touching. Marcus is careful not to fall asleep after that first night, always sneaking back to his own single bed, leaving you awake and alone. Half a lifetime spent in institutions – first the care home and then boarding school – has made it surprisingly difficult for you to fall asleep without the comforting slumbering sounds of others surrounding you – their snores and murmurs and the stirring of sheets. The silence of Uncle Aquila’s house is like roaring in your ears.

On your final afternoon Uncle Aquila leaves the house to go into town.

“I’ll pick up some bits for your tuck box, shall I, Esca?” he asks, casually, but you know he senses your discomfort around these issues, is trying to be delicate about it. _Say no, say no, say no_. You steel yourself.

“Yes, thank you, that would be very kind.”

After he is gone you and Marcus sit in his room, playing chess on his bed. It’s raining outside, the soft spring shower sputtering against the windows. Marcus’ head is bowed over the board, his broad face in and out of shadow. You swallow nervously.

_Take courage, lover._

“Marcus, are we just going to pretend it didn’t happen?”

“What didn’t happen?” He looks across at you, green eyes all innocence, but the colour has risen high in his cheeks, and the tops of his ears are burning.

“The kiss. In the woods.”

Marcus looks at you miserably. “No. I don’t know.”

“We can if you like?”

Marcus looks down. “I don’t think I’m likely to forget about it. I think about it all the time.”

Your heart gives a little flutter of hope. “Yeah?”

Marcus looks up at you again, licks his lips. Then suddenly you’re both scrambling across the chess board in your haste to get at each other, up-ending it in the process, sending a sprawl of pawns and kings across the sheets. Then you’re kissing. And kissing, and kissing. You fall back into the bed and the kiss as if you could stay there forever.

Marcus is almost panting into your mouth, one hand on the small of your back and the other tangled in your hair. You can feel how hard he is, the thick length of his erection is pressing insistently against your hip, but every time you’ve moved to put your hands on him he’s twisted out of your reach, as startled and nimble as a young faun.

You’re not really sure why. You wonder if it’s the same as with girls. Not that you’ve ever kissed a girl, but from what the other boys say, this sort of coquettish behaviour is par for the course. Even Liathan, with all his many tales of his various romantic adventures (which you actually believe, unlike the baseless posturing of Hieron and Hillary) speaks in breathless wonderment about a French girl he got off with last summer who actually _lifted her hips up_ to aid the removal of her knickers. “She didn’t try and stop me once,” he had said, with something approaching awe.

So you content yourself with touching him above the waist, even though you’d like nothing more than to explore that glorious arse, and that big, plump cock you’ve been looking at in the showers after rugby practice. The big, plump cock that Marcus is trying to stop himself from grinding against your thigh. You’ve worked one hand under the neck of his shirt, and you slide it roughly down his collarbone, across the rise of his chest, and pinch at his nipple. Marcus moans against your lips, and you bite at him, at the lushness of his mouth. He responds ecstatically, pulling at your lips with his teeth, then pushing his tongue back into your mouth, thick, urgent. The hand in your hair fists almost uncomfortably tight as he deepens the kiss, wet, hard, intense. He shifts underneath you, a ripple of muscle, and you can feel his dick practically quivering with need where it is pushing against the jut of your pelvis and the soft skin of your stomach.

Suddenly Marcus pulls away, almost pushes you off him, and sits up, so abruptly you think it must make him dizzy.

“Jesus, Esca,” he practically groans. He wipes his wrist over his mouth and then buries his face in his hands.

“What?” you blink, slowly, lying back on his soft clean bed, still feeling dazed with lust-tinted wonderment from all the kissing and touching. “Is... Did I do something wrong?”

A sudden sharp stab of panic. Not that you think Marcus has much experience in this field either, but still, you don’t want him to think you’re…amateurish.

“No. No. That’s the whole point.” You still can’t see his face.

“What’s the whole point? I don’t understand.” You sit up, not liking the vulnerability of lying down while Marcus looms above you.

“This,” he takes his hands away from his face, which is still rosy and flushed, lips swollen and dark from your kisses, and gestures expansively. “This! I just don’t see…what the point is in us getting so…worked up. Well, _me_ getting so worked up.”

You shrug helplessly. “Marcus, I’m sorry, I don’t know what on earth you’re talking about.”

“I mean…it’s just…frustrating. I don’t know. It’s not like we can do anything about it.”

You frown at him in consternation. “What, like, you think I’m being a pricktease?”

“No!” Marcus sounds aghast.

“We _can_ do something about it,” and you move your hand swiftly to his cock, still rock hard beneath his trousers, enjoying the warm thickness of it under your fingers.

“Esca!” he shimmies out of your grip, blushing furiously.

“It’s OK, Marcus. I want to. I’m enjoying it too. Here, feel.” And you take his hand in yours and press it against your own hardness, straining at the zipper of your jeans.

“No!” He removes his hand quickly. “That’s not what I mean, I mean… We can’t… You know. It wouldn’t be right.”

“What wouldn’t be right?”

“I mean…kissing and stuff is OK, I guess, because I…well, I have…feelings for you. Really strong feelings. But I’m not… I’m not…”

“Gay?”

“No! Yes. I don’t know. Perhaps I am. I know I’ve never felt about a girl like how I feel about you.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“I just… it’s shameful. If we did anything…more. I don’t want to do things like that to you. With you,” he corrects himself quickly. “And we’d get in all sorts of trouble. At school, and…you know…it’s illegal.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake.”

“Esca.” Marcus sounds desperate, his eyes are like deep green pools of sorrow.

“You know it’s not actually illegal. Anymore.”

“We’re seventeen. So yeah, it is.”

“I think that law is designed for old men corrupting young boys at bus stops. I don’t think it’s aimed at people like us.”

“The point is it doesn’t really matter what you think. It’s illegal. It’s wrong.”

You look at him for a while, then give a loud sigh of frustration. “I don’t know what you expect me to say.”

“It’s for you too Esca! I think you’re… I just… I really, _really_ like you. I want to be with you all the time. I do. I just don’t think we should be together…like that.”

“Right.” Your heart has been beating double time the whole time you were petting with Marcus, and it hasn’t slowed down, but the tempo’s changed. Now you’re angry. “Well, sorry if I forced you into anything.”

“You didn’t force-“

“Well, I’m sorry if I make you feel _ashamed_.”

“It’s not about that, it’s about-“

“Sorry if I’ve made you stoop to my level. Sorry you clearly find all of this so…disgusting.”

“Esca! I don’t find it disgusting, I find it… Well… But you know other people would. They’d definitely think it was disgusting.”

“I don’t give a shit what other people think!” you shout, and Marcus looks around as if he’s actually scared someone will hear you, even though you’re all by yourselves in the enormous old house.

“Well, I guess that’s just where we’re different,” he says quietly. After a while: “My Uncle…” but then he trails off miserably. Then, finally: “Esca – if they knew – those boys would kill you.”

“So? Then they can kill me, can’t they? I’m not living my life always looking over my shoulder, worrying what everyone else thinks about me. I couldn’t even if I wanted to. My dad kind of made that decision for me. And neither should you. It hasn’t worked out that well for you so far.”

“Esca-“

“No, just forget it. You don’t want to be with me, fine. I don’t want to be with someone who doesn’t want to be with me either.”

You push yourself from the bed angrily, and stride back to the guest bedroom, making sure to put the hook into the eye above the latch on the door so that no one can get in. No one can get in. That’s how it’s always been for you, not letting anyone in. You should have known better than to ever think it could ever be any different. Well, you won’t make that mistake again.

It’s almost dusk when a note slides under your door. You ignore it, just like you’ve ignored Marcus’ earlier pleas of “Esca, Esca,” and his rattling at the latch. You’re lying on the bed, reading one of the books Maman lent you. You don’t known what kind of explanation Marcus offered his uncle for your absence at supper, and you don’t care. But you find you can’t concentrate on the book anymore, not with the note lying there on the worn wooden boards of the floor. You can practically hear it breathing. You throw the book down in frustration, not even caring if you damage the spine, roll off the bed, and snatch the note up. It’s a scrap of poetry, written in Marcus’ laboriously neat handwriting.

_Coming and going, we  
Perchance might kiss, but not between those meals,  
Our hands never touched the seals,  
Which nature, injured by late law, sets free;  
These miracles we did; but now, alas,  
All measure, and all language, I should pass  
Should I tell what a miracle he was_

You screw it up.

 

 

_Marcus_

You’ve totally screwed it up with Esca. He’s not even speaking with you. The car ride to the station to catch the train back to The Academy is torturous, with Esca resolutely ignoring you, the proud jut of his chin tight with anger, his lips a thin pale line. Uncle Aquila shoots you a concerned look and you shrug at him, and say nothing. It’s hardly like you can explain to him what happened. You’d told him Esca wasn’t feeling well for dinner last night, and you thank God that he doesn’t question Esca about this further, expose you in your lie.

There had been a note pushed under your door this morning, and your heart had given a little twirl of hope, but it was just some more poetry, written in Esca’s cramped, spiky handwriting.

_I went to the Garden of Love,  
And saw what I never had seen;  
A Chapel was built in the midst,  
Where I used to play on the green._

_And the gates of this Chapel were shut  
And "Thou shalt not," writ over the door;  
So I turned to the Garden of Love  
That so many sweet flowers bore._

_And I saw it was filled with graves,  
And tombstones where flowers should be;  
And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,  
And binding with briars my joys and desires._

You tried to talk to him when you went upstairs to get your trunks.

“Esca-“

“It’s fine, forget it.”

“But-“

“ _Forget it!_ ”

The minute you board the train he moves to sit in another carriage.

“See you,” he says casually, suddenly as if you’re not fighting, but as if instead you’re nothing to him, just some casual acquaintance he knows from school. It breaks your heart.

[Part V](http://pouxin.livejournal.com/3723.html)  
____________________________________________________________

**Poetry Credits: Part IV**

When Marcus is thinking about the kiss: From Rumi’s ‘ _Four Quatrains_ ’, c.1207-1273; first published in English in 1949 (translated from the Arabic by Coleman Barks and John Moyne)  
When Steven is reading in French class: From Victor Hugo’s ‘ _Les Misérables_ ’, 1862  
When Esca is thinking about the kiss: From Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s ‘ _Fatima_ ’, 1832.  
When Marcus is having hayloft ‘special times’: From Denise Levertov’s _’O Taste and See’_ , 1964  
When Marcus won’t kiss Esca : ‘ _Catullus: Odi et Amo_ ’ by Frank Bidart, 1977/83  
When Esca prepares to talk to Marcus about the kiss: From Robert Graves’ ‘ _Symptoms of Love_ ’, 1961  
Marcus’ note to Esca: From John Donne’s ‘ _The Relic_ ’, 1634  
Esca’s note to Marcus: From William Blake’s ‘ _The Garden of Love_ ’, 1794


	5. Odi et Amo (5/7) | Esca/Marcus | NC-17

**Title** : Odi et Amo  
 **Rating** : NC-17  
 **Pairing** : Esca/Marcus  
 **Summary** : Esca and Marcus are at an all boys boarding school in the UK in the 1970s. They hate each other, until they both become members of the newly formed Dead Poets' Society... Adolescent ardor follows.  
 **Word count** : ~57k  
 **Warnings** : Explicit sex; language; (some) homophobic hate speech; reference to self harm; some (brief) violence

 

The first Dead Poets’ Society meeting of summer term is a joyful affair, with everyone laden with chocolate and boiled sweets from home; pilfered cigarettes and booze; copies of Penthouse gifted from older brothers. Lucas and Guernsey seem genuinely happy to see you, and Claude is eager to give you a graphic blow-by-blow account of some girl he felt up at his sister’s 21st birthday party. 

“Get any action over the holidays, Aquila?” he asks, and it is, naturally, at that moment that Esca chooses to enter the cave.

“No,” you say, too quickly. You can feel your whole face burning. _Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look_. He still isn’t speaking to you. Well, to be honest, you’ve been trying not to force the issue, to give him space, time to calm down. But he seems quite content to simply ignore you. You can’t bear it. You think of how it felt, the weight of him on top of you.

“What about you, McCuntoval?” asks Steven. “Any ladies fall for your miserable wit and girlish frame?”

“Don’t call him that.” The words are out of your mouth before you can stop yourself.

“Why?” Steven looks genuinely surprised by the sharpness of your tone; but now you’ve started it’s like you can’t put a stopper in your rage, it boils up inside you, molten and fresh, cleaning out all the frustration coiled low in your guts as it rushes to the surface and streams out your mouth.

“Because it’s fucking offensive, that’s why.”

“Jesus, Aquila, it’s just a nickname. Relax. Guernsey never gets pissed off when we call him Guernsey.”

“That’s totally different! We call Guernsey Guernsey because he’s from Guernsey! Like we call Prince Dauphin because it’s French for Prince and he’s half French. Mac-… What you call MacCunoval is just because you’re a complete dick.” You pull yourself up to your full height, and take a few steps towards Steven. He’s narrower than you, and stands a good head shorter. You think about how it would feel to smash your fist into his smug, supercilious face. You think about how it would feel to twist his arm up behind his back until tears beaded in his eyes, until he was forced to sink to his knees, until you heard the joint pop. Then you’d make him say sorry to Esca. Over and over. You’d make him admit how he isn’t even fit to shine Esca’s shoes. Your body thrums with the thrill of it, you feel visceral, strong, alive. Even your leg doesn’t bother you.

“Marcus,” Esca says, low and hard, and you turn to look at him. “Stop it. It’s none of your business. Placidus can call me what he likes, I don’t care.”

Steven, who, to give him credit, hasn’t retreated an inch, gives you a meaningful ‘see!’ look.

“Well, I bloody care, alright.”

Esca purses his lips and gives a small shake to his head. _No. Not alright_.

Steven gives you a mystified expression, deliberately hammy. “Since when did you care so much about MacRuntoval anyway? I didn’t realise me joking with your little _girlfriend_ would upset your delicate sensibilities so much. But fine, have it your way. MacCunoval it is.”

Quinton coughs “gay!” into his fist, and you start to turn towards him instead, hands still fisted and ready at your side, but Esca gives you another sharp look. _No_. You notice Prince smirking, and you allow yourself a grim little fantasy of punching him in the face as well, maybe breaking his perfect nose or shattering that knowing grin. Esca wouldn’t want to kiss him then. Fuck. _Fuck_. You have to take several deep breaths to calm yourself. Everything about you still prickles with anger and arousal. You shouldn’t have thought about kissing. Now you think about kissing Esca. You think about wrapping one of your hands round his pale throat, holding him in place, kissing him hard, angry. He’d be dizzy and breathless, soft, malleable, _yours_. He wouldn’t be thinking about Prince then.

“Right. Well, now we’ve established the correct protocol for what we are and aren’t allowed to call everyone, shall we begin?” Steven snides. “ _Liathan_ , the introduction?” He uses Prince’s first name in a deliberately chummy manner. _I hate you_ , you think, with surprising vehemence. Except you don’t really hate Steven, not really. What you really… what you really feel is… what you really feel is that you love Esca. It feels worse than hating someone. Infinitely worse. It feels like it’s eating you from the inside out.

Your anger drains away so abruptly you feel almost bereft. Cold, desperate, aching. You just want Esca to put his arms around you. You want to break against him. You want to drop your head onto his surprisingly broad shoulder, inhale his secret Esca smell. His quick hands in your hair, stroking, his warm breath against your ear, whispering. But you know this won’t happen. There is no comfort for this. Nothing.

Steven is reading:  
 _“In bookstores there are no books,  
in books no words,  
in words no essence:  
there are only husks.  
In museums and waiting rooms  
are painted canvases and fetishes.  
In the Academy there are only recordings  
of the wildest dances.  
In mouths there is only smoke,  
in the eyes only distance.  
There is a drum in each ear.  
A Sahara yawns in the mind.  
Nothing frees us from the desert.  
Nothing saves us from the drum.  
Painted books shed their pages,  
becoming husks of Nothing.” _

You blink miserably into the firelight. You don’t look at Esca. You know it sounds stupid, but sometimes you feel there’s a vortex of darkness inside you, just waiting for you to trip up and fall in, just biding its time. Like you might collapse into the hollowness of your own heart.

“Cheery, Placidus,” Quinton jokes. “To raise the mood a little chaps, I’ve opted for a poem about our mutual favourite activity, which, believe it or not, comes from our set texts for this term. Bonus points to anyone who gets Tuddles to read this in class.”

“Rugby?” Claude asks, and Quinton gives him a withering look.

“No, our other favourite activity. Less of a team sport. Unless you’re Aquila and his girlfriend MacCunoval.”

“I’d drop it if I were you, Hillary,” Guernsey says mildly. “Marcus looks about ready to break someone’s arm.”

Quinton starts reading. “ _I dream'd this mortal part of mine_ ,” and he thrusts his crotch forward and winks. “ _Was Metamorphoz'd to a Vine;_

_Which crawling one and every way  
Enthralled my dainty Lucia.  
Me thought, her long small legs & thighs  
I with my Tendrils did surprize;  
Her Belly, Buttocks, and her Waste  
By my soft Nerv'lits were embrac'd:  
About her head I writhing hung,  
And with rich clusters (hid among  
The leaves) her temples I behung:  
So that my Lucia seem'd to me  
Young Bacchus ravisht by his tree.  
My curles about her neck did craule,  
And armes and hands they did enthrall:  
So that she could not freely stir,  
(All parts there made one prisoner.)  
But when I crept with leaves to hide  
Those parts, which maids keep unespy'd,  
Such fleeting pleasures there I took,  
That with the fancie I awook;  
And found (Ah me!) this flesh of mine  
More like a Stock, than like a Vine.”_

The boys clap and whoop enthusiastically.

“I reckon a whole pack of Gitanes and some of Hillary’s whiskey to anyone who can get Tuddles to read that in class,” says Prince.

You’re trying very hard not to think too much about the poem, not to think about Esca, _tied up_. Tied up and _naked_. You hadn’t even considered this possibility before, for anyone, girl or man, not as something with erotic connotations anyway, tying up has previously been strictly the territory of war hostages and pirate novels. But now the image is in your head it won’t go away. Then you wonder: what if you were tied up? It wouldn’t be…your fault if… There wouldn’t be anything you could do then… So… Esca could just do all the things he wanted with you and no one could blame you for any of it. Esca would just… be in charge of everything. Esca would look after you. Except he wouldn’t because he’s back to hating you again. Your heart slumps with misery. Esca stands up to read.

_“They flee from me that sometime did me seek,  
With naked foot stalking in my chamber.  
I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek  
That are now wild and do not remember  
That sometime they put themselves in danger  
To take bread at my hand; and now they range  
Busily seeking with a continual change.”_

He gives you a pointed look before he continues, face hard as marble in the firelight, nostrils flaring.

_“Thanked be fortune, it hath been otherwise  
Twenty times better; but once in special,  
In thin array after a pleasant guise,  
When her loose gown from her shoulders did fall,  
And she me caught in her arms long and small,  
Therewithall sweetly did me kiss,  
And softly said, "Dear heart, how like you this?"_

_It was no dream, I lay broad waking.  
But all is turned thorough my gentleness,  
Into a strange fashion of forsaking;  
And I have leave to go of her goodness,  
And she also to use newfangleness.  
But since that I so kindly am served,  
I would fain know what she hath deserved.”_

“Looks like MacCunoval _did_ get lucky over Easter,” Lucas jokes.

“Yeah, but now she’s dropped him. Bad luck MacCunoval,” says Claude. You don’t know how Esca can think that. That you’ve _dropped_ him. That you’ve _forsaken_ him. “I’ve got some more lost love poetry to cheer you up. It’s in Latin, and all. Thought I’d give _le Dauphin_ a taste of his own medicine. _Venus: Be Merciful._

_Nocturnis ego sornniis  
iam captum teneo, iam volucrem sequor  
te per gramina Martii  
campi, te per aquas, dure, volubilis.”_

Guernsey groans. “Some of us opted out of Latin for a reason. English, anyone?”

“It’s something like:

_In dreams, at night, hard-hearted one,  
I hold you prisoner, or follow you in flight,  
over the grassy Fields of Mars,  
or wing with you above the inconstant waters,” _Claude explains.

“It’s not inconstancy. That’s too literal. It’s cruelty, Venus is cruel,” Placidus corrects. “It’s more like:

_Now I hold you in my chain,  
And clasp you close, all in a nightly dream;  
Now, still dreaming, o'er the plain  
I chase you; now, ah cruel! down the stream.”_

“Exactly. But you need to attribute the cruelty directly to Venus, the little minx,” says Prince. “So it’s:

_At night in dreams I hold you  
and now I pursue you  
fleeing through the grass of the Campus Martius,  
you, through the waters (you are cruel) fleeing.”_

It doesn’t matter about the translation, you think. Love _is_ cruel. Fleeing.

 

_Esca_

Marcus has been ignoring you since you left his uncle’s, that bizarre display of macho rage at Placidus non-withstanding. Not that you have anything to say to him, but you thought that he might at least _try_ to repair your friendship. He doesn’t even look at you when you read your poem. Well. Whatever.

Guernsey is reading: “ _Your absence has gone through me / Like thread through a needle / Everything I do is stitched with its colour_.” That’s the thing. No matter how hard you try to go back to how you used to feel – cool, impervious, as if all the shitty things that happened at this school were really happening to someone else – you can’t. It’s like Marcus has lit a fire inside your belly and everything is melting, melting. You feel vulnerable, shaken. You want him to envelope you in his great chunky arms and pull you into his chest. You remember how it felt to have him moving beneath you, his hands in your hair, on the delicate hollow of your back.

Marcus stands to read. It requires an act of extreme physical restraint not to look at him. Longing, longing. It unfurls its wings, new and shivery and moth-powder soft inside the night of your heart.

_“Let me confess that we two must be twain,  
Although our undivided loves are one:  
So shall those blots that do with me remain,  
Without thy help, by me be borne alone.  
In our two loves there is but one respect,  
Though in our lives a separable spite,  
Which though it alter not love's sole effect,  
Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love's delight.  
I may not evermore acknowledge thee,  
Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame,  
Nor thou with public kindness honour me,  
Unless thou take that honour from thy name:  
But do not so, I love thee in such sort,  
As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.”_

You can’t miss the great, moony eyes Marcus is making at you as he reads. Fine. _Fine_. It’s not like you’re being wilfully dense. You know that being with Marcus would have to be secret, you know it isn’t something either of you could ever do freely, or publically, or without restraint. But what does Marcus want to do instead? Lead his whole life just being comfortable, just having that flat, barely-breathing happiness: contentment. Does he not want that fierce joy when you’re in each other’s arms, when you’re touching? Or maybe he doesn’t feel that. Maybe that’s just you.

Lucas reads: “ _Both robbed of air, we both lie in one ground / Both whom one fire had burnt, one water drowned_.” You think about how it would be if you’d been with a girl, instead of Marcus. Pressuring her to go further than she wanted. You’d be an arsehole. Just like Hillary and Hieron. Maybe you are an arsehole. But still. You can’t compromise like that with Marcus. Your want for him is too fierce, too savage. It gouges, claws, tooths at you whitely. You would rather have nothing, you would rather lose him altogether than have him in half-measures. Doug is reading:

_“The art of losing isn't hard to master;  
so many things seem filled with the intent  
to be lost that their loss is no disaster,_

_Lose something every day. Accept the fluster  
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.  
The art of losing isn't hard to master._

_Then practice losing farther, losing faster:  
places, and names, and where it was you meant  
to travel. None of these will bring disaster._

_I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or  
next-to-last, of three beloved houses went.  
The art of losing isn't hard to master._

_I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,  
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.  
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster._

_\-- Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture  
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident  
the art of losing's not too hard to master  
though it may look like (Write it!) a disaster.”_

You think of all the things you have lost: your father, your mother, your home, any sense of belonging. You know that set against these things the loss of Marcus’ friendship is tiny, trivial. _But still_. Liathan reads:

_“I cannot grow;  
I have no shadow  
To run away from,  
I only play._

_I cannot err;  
There is no creature  
Whom I belong to,  
Whom I could wrong._

_I am defeat  
When it knows it  
Can now do nothing  
By suffering._

_All you lived through,  
Dancing because you  
No longer need it  
For any deed._

_I shall never be Different. Love me.”_

You know what you need to do.

 

“Marcus,” you approach him on the walk back to your boarding houses, touch his arm lightly to guide him off the path, into the silvery glimmer of the woods. Even that slight touch is enough to set your pulse racing, but you bite down on it, ignore it. “Look – I just wanted to say that-”

Marcus cuts you off, pulling you behind the bulky trunk of a horse chestnut tree, cupping both your shoulders with his large, warm hands. “I need to be with you.” He sounds strangled, desperate – not a voice you’ve heard him use before.

“I thought you were ashamed,” you say, hope making your tone sound less sarcastic than you’d been aiming for.

“You know that’s not what I meant. I would never be ashamed of how I feel about you. You’re one of the best people I know.”

He looks so earnest you start to feel bad. You think how he stood up for you, in the cave, over that stupid nickname. How he stood up for you, even though Placidus and Hillary made all those snide comments about his sexuality, surely the thing he is most afraid of.

“Marcus, it’s OK. I’m sorry, I was a dick. I acted like a complete… You know, pressuring you into stuff and then having a tantrum when you didn’t want to. I… It was stupid. We can just be friends. We don’t need to _do_ anything.”

“But I want to _do_ things.”

“Marcus.” You look at him warily. You can’t go through all this again.

“Esca. I want to. I think about… _doing_ things…all the time. I can’t concentrate in class. I can’t sleep. I just think about you. This.”

And he kisses you.

 

_Marcus_

When Esca stands next to you in assembly, he lets the very tip of his little finger brush against the side of your hand as you open your hymn books. It’s enough to make you break out in a fine sheen of sweat, your dick jump in your pants, your throat clog up with wanting. Esca gives you an amused sideways look, as if he’s perfectly aware of the effect he has on you. _Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look_. It doesn’t make any difference, your discover, whether you look at him or not. You already have every inch of Esca memorised – the proud tilt of his cheekbones, the sweep of his chest, the narrow waist flaring out into his tight little hips. Well, every inch that you’ve _seen_.

It’s noisy on the way out of the Hall, the thud of feet on wooden boards, the murmur of chatter and laughter, despite various Masters barking threats of detentions and canings. You take the opportunity to hiss into Esca’s ear.

“We need to go somewhere. You know. Alone.” Esca looks over his shoulder at you, grey eyes dancing.

“The roof? By the French room? The place where you told me you didn’t want to be friends with me.”

You raise your brows at him, shrug with mock helplessness.

“Well, that lasted all of five minutes. Tonight?”

“Eleven. Don’t get followed.”

“It’s like being in a spy novel.”

 

You wait for him all day, hot with anticipation. You have to keep crossing and uncrossing your legs during classes to hide your erection. You try not to think. You’re not going to think about all the reasons this is a terrible, _terrible_ , idea. You’re just going to _do_.

By the time you’re creeping along the dim halls of Main Corridor, breathing in the familiar smell of boy-sweat and disinfectant, you feel sick with nerves. It’s one thing kissing Esca when it just…sort of…happens. It’s another thing entirely to go somewhere with the sole purpose of getting off with each other. You rub your damp palms on the coarse material of your school pants before raising the sash window. Esca’s already there, back to you, smoking a cigarette. He is brilliant in the moonlight, bright and pearlescent, like an angel of mercy. Or death. He turns when he hears you climbing out the window, smiles. Death. Mercy.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

You stand awkwardly, hands at your sides. You have no idea what to do. Esca throws his cigarette down and grinds it out with his shoe. Each movement seems like it’s been effortlessly choreographed. He covers the ground between you in quick, easy strides, and places his hands on either side of your face.

“Hi,” he says again. His smile, such a rare thing, beautiful. You kiss. Esca tastes of cigarettes and faintly of the over-stewed mince in the Shepherd’s Pie you had for tea, but underneath that he tastes just of himself. Esca. It’s a flavour you’ll never get bored of sampling. You rub your fingers through his hair, shorter now Matron’s got her scissors to it, but still haphazard, messy. You can feel several narrow strips of raised scar tissue along the tender back of Esca’s skull.

“What are these?”

“Ah,” Esca says, “Foundation. Your good friend Placidus decided to run my head along the back of the radiator in the dormitory. Several times.”

Your stomach gives a confused clench of lust and rage. You want to tear Placidus apart with you bare hands. You want to kiss Esca again.

“He’s not really my friend, you know. Steven.”

“Yeah. I figure Placidus doesn’t really have any friends. Real friends.” Esca gives a grim smile. “Well, me neither.” His smile broadens, softens. “Except you. You’re my friend. You’re my _best friend_.”

 

_Esca_

“You’re my best friend too,” Marcus says. “I know… you can take care of yourself and everything, but I just want you to know, if he ever – _ever_ – does anything like that to you again, I’ll rip his fucking head off and use it for rugby practice. I’m serious.”

You don’t _need_ anyone to look after you. But somehow you find yourself wanting it anyway. In fact, the idea of Marcus fighting people for you makes you feel weird, sort of hot and prickly, like your insides are full of honey and nettles. You think of your father, the notorious pacifist, but it’s no use. You want Marcus all strong and righteous, torn and bloody as if from battle, his big brute hands tender just for you, soft on your face as he soothes you. You kiss some more.

You move your hand down to rub experimentally against his prick through his school trousers, and he doesn’t stop you, although his eyes go very wide and his breath hitches in his throat. Boldened, you unbutton his fly, reach your hand inside, feel the cotton of his underpants, thrill at the spot of wetness at the head of his cock. You push your hand down past the elastic around his hips, find the hot length him. Marcus exhales sharply against the side of your neck, his eyes drooping with pleasure. You lip at his mouth again, push your tongue in, kiss him, hard. He is making little high sounds of pleasure and encouragement, hums and mews, so you start to pull hard on his dick, sliding the skin back from the head roughly, just how you like it when you’re touching yourself. You feel Marcus tense a little, pull away from your kiss.

“Ha! Jesus, Esca, go gentle.” He half laughs at your disappointed expression, then kisses you lightly on the mouth. “It’s just… it’s really sensitive. If you would just… don’t stop. Just…softer.”

You feel stupid. Of course Marcus isn’t necessarily the same as you. In fact, now you have it in your hand, you notice Marcus’ cock is very different from yours. Bigger - not so much in length, but it’s fatter, rounder, and it feels less smooth, more veined. The skin feels somehow thinner, just a delicate casing of crêpey silk around the firm pulsing core. You rub gently - awkwardly given that the starchy cotton of his underpants restricts your movements - adding a little twist at the end of each stroke. You wonder at how the pressure could ever be enough; but Marcus is gasping and shaking against you, his hands clenched tight to the point of pain into your shoulders, and when he says your name – “Esca” - his voice sounds sticky, thick; so you must be doing something right. It doesn’t take long for him to still and stiffen in your grip, and you feel his cock pulse, and a warm gush of come splash against your wrist.

“Uh,” Marcus murmurs sweatily. He sags against you, trapping your hand uncomfortably inbetween your two bodies. You extract it gingerly, damp from your sweat and Marcus’ come, smelling strongly of sex. Sex and Marcus. You kind of want to raise it to your face and smell it, lick it clean with your tongue, taste him, fill your mouth with him. But you’re worried that might freak him out, so you rub it surreptitiously on Marcus’ arse instead.

“Hey!” he says softly. “How on earth am I going to explain that to Matron?”

“Just tell her Hieron was standing behind you in line for class and the wind changed or something.”

Marcus grins at that, and kisses you again, wet and languid. You prod your hard-on against him as you kiss, none too subtly. Having Marcus’ mouth on yours, feeling him come in your hand, hearing his voice go all deep and scratchy with desire – none of these things have done anything to calm your raging erection. Fortunately Marcus takes the hint, and moves his hands down to the fastening of your trousers, one broad thumb tracing a line up your dick through the rough material, making you twitch and shiver. Then he reaches in, and you feel his skin on you, shocking in its intimacy. No one has ever touched you there before. Your balls pull dangerously tight, and for a second you’re worried you might just come there and then, before he’s even started to stroke you. You breathe in deeply, try counting backwards from ten in your head, and the moment thankfully passes.

“You can go a bit harder with me,” you murmur, as he starts to tug.

“OK.”

But the positioning is awkward, and the thick serge of your trousers and tight cotton of your briefs impede Marcus’ movements, making it hard for him to gather any real momentum.

“Here,” he says, and he moves to stand behind you, before reaching round to take you in hand. Not only is the angle just right, but you’re now completely enveloped in Marcus, his broad strong chest pressed against your narrow back, your head cradled against his shoulder, the nudge of his softened cock against the curve of your arse, those muscular, thick arms wrapping around you. For a minute it’s almost too much, you feel caged, crowded. But then as his hand starts to move on you again, you allow yourself to relax, just a little, into his embrace, to feel looked after, to feel cared for.

“Harder still,” you breathe.

“Really?”

“I wouldn’t say so if I didn’t want it.”

Marcus duly speeds up, squeezing you harder with every upward stroke, almost to the point of pain, making you bite your lip, butt your head back into the expanse of his chest. His hands are so big, they feel incredible, like they’re touching every part of you. You open your eyes, look up at the stars. You notice Marcus is staring, over your shoulder, gazing as the tender pink head of your cock, glistening with pre-come, emerges and is enveloped by the steady twist of his wide brown hand. The colour is high in his cheeks, and his eyes look enormous. You crane round to kiss at his neck.

“You like that, hmm? Watching us?”

“You know I do.” He blushes. He is so handsome. You chest feels light as a balloon.

He places his lips against your earlobe then. “ _Dear heart, how like you this_?”

You laugh, try to think of something clever and poetic to say back, but pleasure is already like a drug in your veins, making your mind go blank and swimmy. You come so hard it makes your legs buckle, and you lean back into Marcus again, breathing hard, grateful for his sturdy presence at your rear.

There’s a noise on the pathway beneath the flat of the roof you’re standing on. It’s probably just a fox picking its way towards the kitchens or something, but you feel Marcus stiffen immediately, and the warm bulk of him is abruptly withdrawn from behind you.

“Shit,” he mutters. “We’d better get back inside.” His eyes shift to the sides anxious, distracted.

“OK.” You tuck yourself away quickly, still sticky with your own emissions. Marcus is already drawing up the sash windows. You can’t believe just moments ago you were in his arms, his hand was on you, his mouth was at your ear. You feel a strange ringing in your head, a pull across your sternum. This is how it will always be, you think. With Marcus. Him rushing away, letting the world in all the time, never keeping anything just for you. He might make his threats about Placidus and the other boys, but you know he’ll never really fight for you, for the pair of you. He’ll never just give you these moments, out here, the two of you, fuck the rest of them. He’ll always wish things were different, that you were someone else. That he were someone else.

You feel cold. Marcus seems so far away from you now, his green eyes murky, impenetrable.

“I’ll go first, then you go,” he stage whispers.

“OK.” You repeat. You turn your back on him as he goes, mainly so he won’t see you bite at the fresh indentations in your lip, try to stop yourself from crying.

 

_Marcus_

It’s been over a week since you and Esca were together on the roof, and you feel like you’re going mad with it. You think about him _all_ the time. His smile, his smell, the softness in his eyes when he looks at you. The shape of his cock curving into your palm. You _hate_ this school. It makes you want to bite at your fist with frustration. There is nowhere to be alone; everything you do is prescribed, conditioned, monitored – either by the staff or the other boys. Esca is unbearably cool with you, he sits by you in lessons, but acts as if nothing has happened, _is_ happening. He is perfect, aloof. You admire him for it. It’s quite a show.

It’s such a show that after a while you start to wonder if it’s more than that. If you’ve upset him in some way. But, no… Surely? You think you should probably ask him about it, but he’s never around you without others, it suddenly seems almost impossible to get him by himself.

Sign-up sheets go up in the Lower Sixth Common Room for next year’s dormitory and House allocation. You’re hovering next to it with your fountain pen, stomach a swirl of nerves and anticipation, chewing your lip as you think about the numerous possibilities this offers, when Prince walks up.

He writes ‘Esca MacCunocal’ in clear, sloping script next to his own name. You give him a sideways glance. He catches your eye, stares back baldly.

“Just so’s you know,” he says, casually, “Maccers and I are sharing a dorm next year.”

You feel your hackles rise, despite yourself.

You shrug, “whatever.”

Your write Esca’s name alongside your own too, knowing full well Prince is watching. You had half a mind not to request Esca – to ask for Lucas again – less, complicated, less stressful, les full of delicious temptation, the lurking horror of discovery. But the thought of Esca sharing with Prince is…well…you get that weird tight feeling in your throat.

“Marcus – we’ve discussed it.”

“Discussed what?”

“Sharing. Me and Macs. We’ve talked about it. And he’s putting me too. So you’re just wasting your vote. You should ask for Dacian or Guernsey or whatever. One of your friends.”

“Esca’s my _friend_.”

“Sure. But, like I said, we’ve discussed it, and we’re sharing.”

You turn to face Prince, square-on. The easy, graceful slope to his shoulders; the smirking face – exotic and aristocratic at the same time; the insouciant shrug.

“You know what, Liathan. Why don’t you just fuck off?” Your voice is calm, but laced with menace. You take a step towards him. You hate him in that moment. He’s everything you’re not: self-assured, quick-witted, immune from the other boys’ good or bad opinions. _With a mother and father who love him_. And, apparently, Esca.

Prince’s eyes glint dangerously, blackly angry. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” You hold your ground, wishing him to do something, _anything_ , that gives you an excuse to smack him round the face. He looks at you for a long, hot beat.

“You don’t scare me, Aquila.”

“Is that so?”

“That’s so. You’re kind of pathetic really. I told you: Esca’s chosen me. _Me_. I think now I can see why.”

You can almost hear what he’s thinking: _retard cripple_. There’s a roaring of blood in your ears.

Prince shakes his head. “Pathetic.”

You shove him, hard, back against the wall where the sheet is pinned, enjoying the way the breath suddenly wheezes from his lungs.

“You want to say that again?”

“ _Pathetic_ ,” Prince hisses, wincing from the force of the impact, but not giving an inch.

“I’m going to enjoy making you take that back.” You grab a hold of his luxuriant dark hair, jerk his head back into the wall, forcing him to look you in the eyes.

Suddenly Esca is beside you, hand fisted into the collar of your blazer.

“Jesus, Marcus,” he sounds angry. Appalled. You pause, suddenly unsure of what you’re doing, why you’re doing it. “What the fuck?”

Prince takes the opportunity to slip out of your grip. “Heel, doggie,” he drawls, voice like biting. You go to grab at him again. Esca yanks at your jacket.

“Marcus!”

“You need to have word with him, Macs. He’s a brainless thug, as I always suspected. I told him we were sharing a dorm next year and he assaulted me.”

Esca gives you a hard look. “Is that true?”

You shrug, refuse to meet his eye. Fuck Prince. Fuck Esca. Fuck them all.

“Say sorry, Marcus,” Esca says, low and furious. His hand is still caught on the neck of your jacket, pulling your head back painfully.

You grit your teeth with rage. “Esca-“

“ _Say sorry_.”

Prince’s face is cool, amused; but ultimately unreadable, as ever.

“Sorry,” you mutter, almost inaudibly. Esca lets go.

Prince gives you that insufferable smile, one last time.

“Apology accepted. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have prep to be getting on with. Gentlemen.”

You and Esca stand in silence for a long time after he’s left. Esca shakes his head at you, then looks down at the floor. You note the irony that for once you’re alone, just the two of you in the common room.

“Is that true?” you ask, after a while. You’re too hurt to be angry anymore, or to be embarrassed that you probably acted like a complete jerk. None of it matters, not really. All the matters is that Esca chose Prince. “Is that true that you’re sharing a dorm with Prince? You chose Prince?”

Ecsa runs a hand through the messy mop of his hair – always messy however matron cuts it – and looks at you almost desperately.

“Why does it have to be a choice?” he asks softly.

“It doesn’t. It’s just you and Prince. You’ve always been so close. And I… and I…” you start, struggling to put into words what you feel, all your fears and hopes, all the _feeling_ you have.

“Don’t worry Marcus, I know what you are,” Esca mutters.

“What’s _that_ supposed to mean?”

He gives you a hard look, then, gently relenting. “Look, OK, if it’s a choice, I choose you. I choose you, OK? I don’t think you even know how much I would choose you. But I know… I know we want different things…from this –” he gestures between the two of you. “I know you don’t really want the things I do. The same way I do.”

You can feel your palms slick up with sweat. You feel sick. _No, Esca_.

“I do.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I do! It’s just…”

“Marcus, you don’t!” Esca sounds suddenly sad. “You…You’re always holding something back.”

“I… it’s difficult.” You look at him helplessly. You don’t know what he wants you to say. You don’t know what you can say to make things better again.

“Yeah, well. I know it’s always going to be a bit vanilla.”

“Vanilla?!” you manage.

“With Liathan – with the dorm thing… I mean, sometimes it’s nice to hang out with someone where I don’t feel that I have to be on my best behaviour.”

“Do you mean… with Liathan…that you…?” You can taste actual bile rising in your throat, the tang of it in your mouth, hot and bitter.

“No, no, of course not. Never. Nothing like that. It’s only ever been with you,” Esca reaches out and puts a hand on the sleeve of your blazer, but you shrug it off. You can’t bear him touching you, not whilst he’s saying these things. “I think I’ve said it all wrong,” he mumbles, “I’ve made a hash out of it. It’s always you, Marcus. I just don’t think – for you – it’s always me. I don’t think you’ll ever be able to be that free with me. It’s not your fault, it’s just who you are.” Then he adds: “Anyway, I don’t know why you’re jealous. _You’re_ the one with the secret girlfriend.”

“What?”

“What Hieron said, last term. Some girl at your Uncle’s. The one you’re in _love_ with.”

“Esca, that was just a cover story. There was no girl, there was just you. It was you,” this time you reach out, and Esca is the one who brushes away your touch. “Claude was all, like: oh, you’re in lo-… you’re into someone, and it was you, so I just pretended there was a girl.”

“You wish I was a girl,” Esca replies quietly, careful to keep his voice free of emotion.

“That’s ridiculous!”

“No, it’s not. You’ve pretty much said it yourself. When we were fighting. You wish you felt about a girl the way you feel about me.”

You sigh with exasperation. “Well, Esca, you can’t deny it would be a lot easier if it worked out that way. You can’t expect me to delight in the fact that if anyone found out about us we’d be expelled, we’d be social pariahs, we’d be… even worse.”

“Of course I don’t expect you to _delight_ t in it, Marcus. But I think in your heart you’re not…into me that way. Into men that way. I mean, come on, you can’t deny if I was a girl we’d have shagged each other senseless by now. Christ knows, I want to.”

You gape at him. “I… I…. It’s not that I don’t want to…”

“I mean even when we…you know, when we were touching each other out on the roof you had to go and stand behind me because you couldn’t bear to look in my face, or whatever.”

“What?!” You feel genuinely mystified by the turn this conversation is taking. You don’t know how you would go about saving it even if you could.

“Just… Don’t worry about it. I understand. I’ve got to get to Physics.”

 

You take yourself for a brisk walk around the games pitches to clear your head. You wait for your leg to start needling in protest, but for once it’s well-behaved, the muscles feeling good and strong and whole. Other parts of you feel less good, your heart sluggish with misery in your chest – you don’t know how you manage to keep upsetting Esca so much when he really is the dearest person to you in the whole world. Your other friendships ate all so much more straightforward. You think: _it’s like being with a girl._ Then you think about what Esca said: _you wish I was a girl_. Then you think: _vanilla?_ Then some anger starts to ebb back, treacly thick in your veins, and welcome. The point is _neither_ of you are girls.

_Vanilla_.

Then you think: _we’ll see about that._

 

You’re late into Physics.

“Ah, Aquila! Good of you to join us,” Mr Kaeso says dryly, making a note on his report book. Great. That’s all you need, a write-up for tardiness.

You take your place at the desk next to Lucas. Claude leans over, smug and sweaty looking.

“How come you’re so late? I saw you in the CR earlier. Did you have an argument with your _girlfriend_ MacCunoval?”

“Yeah, but don’t worry, we then made up and spent the rest of lunch break buggering each other senseless in the pav.”

Claude gives you a look of disgusted disbelief and settles back in his seat and Lucas lets out a snort of laughter.

“You want to be careful with Hieron, Quilly. He’s a bit too dense to get the joke sometimes. It’ll be all round the school by supper that you’re a raging poufter.”

You wonder if that’s what Esca actually wants? What _does_ Esca want?

You know what you want. Esca.

[Part VI](http://pouxin.livejournal.com/3958.html)

_______________________________________________________________

**Poetry Credits: Part V**

**Dead Poets’ Society Fifth Meeting**

Steven Placidus: ‘ _Nothing_ ’ by Jorge Carrera Andrade, 1946 (translated from the Spanish by Steven Ford Brown)  
Quinton Hilary: ‘ _The Vine_ ’ by Robert Herrick, 1648  
Esca MacCunoval: ‘ _They Flee From Me That Sometime Did Me Seek_ ’ by Thomas Wyatt, 1557  
Claude Hieron: From Horace’s ‘ _Venus, Be Merciful_ ’, 23BC (Translations from the Latin by: A. S. Kline; Alexander Amphiteatrof; Frank Bidart)  
John ‘Guernsey’ Hunter: ‘ _Separation_ ’ by W. S. Merwin, 1962  
Marcus Aquila: ‘ _Sonnet 36_ ’ by William Shakespeare, c.1609  
Lucas Dacian: ‘ _Hero and Leander_ ’ by John Donne, c.1631  
Doug Cheef: ‘ _One Art_ ’ by Elizabeth Bishop, 1969  
Liathan Prince: From W.H. Auden’s ‘ _Three Songs for St. Cecilia's Day_ ’, 1941


	6. Odi et Amo (6/7) | Esca/Marcus | NC-17

**Title** : Odi et Amo  
 **Rating** : NC-17  
 **Pairing** : Esca/Marcus  
 **Summary** : Esca and Marcus are at an all boys boarding school in the UK in the 1970s. They hate each other, until they both become members of the newly formed Dead Poets' Society... Adolescent ardor follows.  
 **Word count** : ~57k  
 **Warnings** : Explicit sex; language; (some) homophobic hate speech; reference to self harm; some (brief) violence

 

_Esca_

It’s been a warm evening, and it melts into a mild night, bright and star-kissed. The woods around the cave smell verdant, fertile, ripe. The cave feels warmly wet, the combination of the fire and the dry weather sucking all the moisture from the stone and releasing it into the air. You can feel it settling along the bones of your face, in your eyelashes. 

Marcus is already there when you arrive, sitting in his customary place on an old upturned bucket, talking with Dacian. He looks happy, relaxed. You feel disappointment spike in your heart. Your one consolation in all this has been that at least if you’re miserable, Marcus is miserable too. But Marcus doesn’t seem miserable. Maybe the whole thing with Liathan and the dorm sharing next year was a step too far. Maybe Marcus has given up on you altogether. You realise, perhaps too late, that you always secretly thought if you pushed Marcus hard enough, he would open himself up to you. He would be yours. Now you think you might have just pushed him away. Your mind scrambles over the thought, slippery with dismay, trying to find a toehold of true meaning. _Isn’t this what you wanted? You like being alone, you are good at it_. But you don’t want to be good at it anymore. You want to be with Marcus.

Dacian stands up, holding aloft a suspect looking bottle of own-brand whiskey.

“A toast, gentlemen! To summer! To poetry!”

“To only having a year left of indentured servitude,” chimes in Guernsey, and everyone laughs.

“And only five weeks left until the summer holidays!

_This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,  
Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson  
done, Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the  
themes thou lovest best, Night, sleep, death and the stars.”_

Five weeks and then that will be it. You won’t see Marcus for almost two months. Just a few short weeks ago, you would have been able to fool yourself you didn’t care. But now, now you realise you actually care very much indeed. Care more than you’ve cared about anything in years; since your parents died, and you were taken from your sister and put into a place where it was better to care about nothing, and no one. Marcus has brought all this back into your life: the potential for joy, the potential for devastation. All of a sudden, the prospect of that being taken away again feels a little bit like the end of the world.

 

_Marcus_

You try not to look at Esca. If you do, you feel your pulse start to stumble and trip in your chest, fear and uncertainty making it hesitate. If you don’t look at him it stays sure, strong and true. The quiver in your belly feels like nerves, but not just nerves, something else. _Excitement_. Steven is reading, with his normal smirking aplomb.

_“Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.  
There is no happiness like mine.  
I have been eating poetry._

_The librarian does not believe what she sees.  
Her eyes are sad  
and she walks with her hands in her dress._

_The poems are gone.  
The light is dim.  
The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up._

_Their eyeballs roll,  
their blond legs burn like brush.  
The poor librarian begins to stamp her feet and weep._

_She does not understand.  
When I get on my knees and lick her hand,  
she screams._

_I am a new man.  
I snarl at her and bark.  
I romp with joy in the bookish dark.” _

You allow yourself a small smile at this. You think: _I am a new man… I romp with joy._

Then Esca stands to read, and you school your face back into impassivity.

_“hate blows a bubble of despair into  
hugeness world system universe and bang  
-fear buries a tomorrow under woe  
and up comes yesterday most green and young,” _

Esca sends you a shuttered glance, soft-grey and pointed, almost yearning. _Focus_. Focus.

“ _pleasure and pain are merely surfaces  
(one itself showing,itself hiding one)  
life's only and true value neither is  
love makes the little thickness of the coin_

_comes here a man would have from madame death  
nevertheless now and without winter spring?  
she'll spin that spirit her own fingers with  
and give him nothing (if he should not sing)_

_how much more than enough for both of us  
darling. And if i sing you are my voice,”_

You clap dutifully, trying not to let your mind dwell on his poem, whether it was for you, what it might mean. It’s difficult though. _Darling_. The cave feels warm and damp, the firelight making shadows dance and flare along the walls, the heat of it pulling the blood high into your cheeks. Liathan is reading. He seems unusually subdued, pale face pinched and hungry looking, dark hair lank around his cheeks.

_“No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;  
Am an attendant lord, one that will do  
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,  
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,  
Deferential, glad to be of use,  
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;  
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;  
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—  
Almost, at times, the Fool.”_

He gives Esca a brief, fluttering look at this, sad and angry in equal measure, before he continues. You find it hard to concentrate on what he is saying. Your mouth feels dry, your palms damp. _Don’t look_. But it’s hard not to look at Esca. You remember in Foundation how ordinary he seemed, how short and skinny and plain, with his over-sized ears and badly darned second hand school sweater. But now you know. He is the most extraordinary person in the world.

Claude stands to read, digging his elbow into your ribs as he does so, and giving you a sly grin.

_“. . . 'Sweet youth,  
Tell me why, sad and sighing, thou dost rove  
These pleasant realms? I pray thee speak me sooth  
What is thy name?' He said, 'My name is Love.'  
Then straight the first did turn himself to me  
And cried, 'He lieth, for his name is Shame,  
But I am Love, and I was wont to be  
Alone in this fair garden, till he came  
Unasked by night; I am true Love, I fill  
The hearts of boy and girl with mutual flame.'  
Then sighing said the other, 'Have thy will,  
I am the Love that dare not speak its name.'”_

_Esca_

You feel the blood drain from your face as Hieron reads the poem in his rumbling, boarish voice. Oh, brilliant. Marcus is going to _freak out_ about that. Hieron can’t _know_. You know there’s now way he can _know_. But he clearly knows enough, or thinks he knows enough, to assume his choice of verse will have some effect on Marcus. Marcus certainly doesn’t _look_ affected. He wears the same neutral, slightly distant expression he did when you read your poem. You think: _maybe he doesn’t understand_. But then, it’s hardly if the poem is that obtuse, and if anyone knows the poet, they’ll know his… _preferences_. Then another, colder, sneakier thought hits you, like a blade in your back in the darkness, slicing between the delicate knots of your spine and finding something warm and vital. Maybe Marcus looks so calm because he just _doesn’t care_. Doesn’t care because he knows from this point on he will have nothing to do with you, so Hieron will soon have forgotten whatever ideas he may or may not have inside his lumbering, bullish head. The blade twists and burns. _Marcus_. You wonder how you can ever have thought him plain or stupid. What had you said to him at the first meeting? _The looks and grace of an 18th century pig framer_? But he is beautiful, in the firelight, the most beautiful man you have ever known. And now he is probably lost for you forever. He glitters, but to look at him is to feel the light going out of the sky

Hillary stands to read, taking a generous swig from Dacian’s whiskey bottle.

_“I have been one acquainted with the night.  
I have walked out in rain --and back in rain.  
I have outwalked the furthest city light._

_I have looked down the saddest city lane.  
I have passed by the watchman on his beat  
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain._

_I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet  
When far away an interrupted cry  
Came over houses from another street,_

_But not to call me back or say good-bye;  
And further still at an unearthly height  
One luminary clock against the sky_

_Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.  
I have been one acquainted with the night.”_

You let the words swill unhappily around inside your head. _One acquainted with the night._

“Bloody hell, Lucas, that’s depressing,” Guernsey says, as the others clap. “I feel to restore Frost’s good name we might need to hear one of his, uh, _racier_ pieces:

_You come to fetch me from my work to-night  
When supper's on the table, and we'll see  
If I can leave off burying the white  
Soft petals fallen from the apple tree.  
(Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite,  
Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea;)  
And go along with you ere you lose sight  
Of what you came for and become like me,  
Slave to a springtime passion for the earth.  
How Love burns through the Putting in the Seed  
On through the watching for that early birth  
When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed,_

_The sturdy seedling with arched body comes  
Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs.”_

The boys whistle and clap appreciatively.

Great. That’s just what you need, thoughts about sex; smooth beans and wrinkled peas; sturdy arched bodies coming. Miserable, miserable. Heart lugging in your chest. You rarely allow yourself the luxury of self pity, and now you’ve let it get a foothold it is running away with your thoughts with alarming alacrity.

Then Marcus stands to read. He finally looks at you. A long look, slow and deliberate. His eyes hot green and burnished gold, sun on water down in the bayou, sun on skin, wet. He bites softly at his lower lip, at the plump fatness of it. Your heart shudders with sadness and longing. Then he winks at you. Actually _winks_. Marcus.

_“Pull my daisy  
tip my cup  
all my doors are open  
Cut my thoughts  
for coconuts  
all my eggs are broken  
Jack my Arden  
gate my shades  
woe my road is spoken  
Silk my garden  
rose my days  
now my prayers awaken_

_Bone my shadow  
dove my dream  
start my halo bleeding  
Milk my mind &  
make me cream  
drink me when you're ready  
Hop my heart on  
harp my height  
seraphs hold me steady  
Hip my angel  
hype my light  
lay it on the needy_

_Heal the raindrop  
sow the eye  
bust my dust again  
Woe the worm  
work the wise  
dig my spade the same  
Stop the hoax  
What’s the hex  
where's the wake  
how's the hicks  
take my golden beam_

_Rob my locker  
lick my rocks  
leap my cock in school  
Rack my lacks  
lark my looks  
jump right up my hole  
Whore my door  
beat my boor  
eat my snake of fool  
Craze my hair  
bare my poor  
asshole shorn of wool_

_say my oops  
ope my shell  
Bite my naked nut  
Roll my bones  
ring my bell  
call my worm to sup  
Pope my parts  
pop my pot  
raise my daisy up  
Poke my pap  
pit my plum_  
let my gap be shut”

He says the last line in a slow, rumbling drawl; his voice suddenly sounding as thick and American as black coffee, summer heat on the prairies, cigar smoke in downtown jazz bars. All the things you have never seen, yet have seen, through literature. It is the voice of all your dirtiest imaginings. You’re sure your mouth is hanging open.

“Jesus, Aquila. Gay, much?” Hieron snorts.

“Shut up, Claude,” Placidus snaps, then turns to Marcus. “Now _that’s_ what I call a poem.”

Hieron looks like a dog who’s just been kicked savagely in the ribs by his master for performing a previously favourite trick. You want to laugh.

The colour is high in Marcus’ cheeks, and he keeps glancing across at you, quick, snatchy glances, full of hope and promise that make you feel queasy with joy and anticipation. You still can’t believe he read _that_ poem. You can’t believe… You can’t… _Jesus_.

Doug is reading:

_“I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.  
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.  
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day  
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.  
I hunger for your sleek laugh,  
your hands the colour of a savage harvest,  
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,  
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond._

_I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,  
the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,  
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,_

_and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,  
hunting for you, for your hot heart,  
like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.”_

You need to be out of this cave. It feels like a cage, and you feel fit to bursting, fierce with… _something_. You look at Marcus as the rest of the boys start clearing up, packing left over tuck back into knapsacks, Placidus stamping on the edges of the fire. You indicate with a jerk of your head that you are leaving, then slink out into the treeline around the lake, where you wait, knowing he will come. _Hunting for you, for your hot heart._

You see him come out from the cave, half-in half-out of shadow, silvery black. He pauses, scanning around him, and you risk a little wave. When he sees you, he smiles broadly, and practically bounds towards you, grabbing your arm and pulling you deeper into the trees.

“Did you like the poem?” he asks, still grinning.

“ _Yeah_ ,” you say emphatically. “Did you like mine? I was trying to apologise for earlier, for…”

Marcus silences you, leaning down and into your neck to whisper hot in your ear. “I was thinking about what you said earlier, actually. That’s why I picked that poem. I just want you to know that I want to do _everything_ with you. Kiss you. Touch you. Suck each other. Fuck.”

Just hearing Marcus say those things make you instantly so hard you feel dizzy with it. It’s embarrassing. Your head feels as light and twisted as a spinning top. You swallow heavily.

“What?” you manage.

Marcus pulls away from your neck and looks down at you, grin fading, suddenly unsure. “I mean, well, only if you want to?”

“Yes,” you croak. Then, louder, “Yes!”

“Good.”

He kisses you firmly, tongue warm and eager in your mouth, one hand moving down in-between your bodies to palm you through your trousers. You’re almost moaning with pleasure by the time he pulls his mouth away, breaking the kiss, and you follow the heat of his mouth, lips blindly searching for his again, a small sound of annoyance escaping you when you can’t find him. When you open your eyes you see he has sunk down to his knees among the moss and the loam, and your heart jumps into your throat so violently you feel like you might die of excitement. You smile at him, breathless. He rubs one of his large hands along your prick, head tilted to one side. Then he looks up at you, face open and anxious.

“Esca?”

“Yes?”

“You haven’t…um… I mean, have you… you know, _been_ with somebody else? Before?”

You feel a little flare of annoyance. “Why? Is it important for your manly pride that you get to deflower a quivering virgin?”

Marcus grins up at you then, as if he finds your annoyance amusing, and you can’t help yourself, the sparkling greenness of his eyes, and the twist of a dimple appearing in his cheek undoes you, your stomach spilling all over the floor.

“No,” you concede reluctantly. “Before… before you I hadn’t even _kissed_ anyone before.”

Marcus’ grin deepens. “And did you enjoy it?”

“What?” you ask sharply. You wish it wasn’t so bloody hard to be annoyed with him. He’s just too handsome. Too handsome, and too _on his knees before you in a dark wood_.

“Your first kiss?”

You shrug noncommittally. “It was alright, I guess. I don’t really have a frame of reference, do I?”

Marcus quirks an eyebrow at you. “’Alright’?”

“I enjoyed it,” you grumble. It would also be easier to maintain a sense of wounded indignance if your hard on wasn’t about to poke Marcus in the eye. “What about you?”

“I... I’ve kissed one girl before. I touched her breasts a bit. Under her bra.”

“Under her bra, hey?” you say archly. “Wow. Well – lead the way. I bow to your superior experience of carnal matters.”

Marcus gives you a wry half smile, scrunching his eyes up to look at you slightly goofily. “It wasn’t like it is with you though. With you it’s like… it’s like…” he shrugs, “I don’t know how to describe it.”

He leans his face against you, forehead flush against your hardness, making you shiver. You let one hand rest gently against the dark silk of his hair.

“I know,” you say softly. Marcus stays like that, pressed against you, for a long while, so long that you start to wonder how his thigh isn’t hurting him. You try your best to avoid rutting yourself against his face.

“I don’t really know what to do,” he mumbles into the material of your trousers.

_Unbutton me. Put me in your mouth._

But you figure Marcus is probably looking for reassurance, not the content of your sweaty fingered fantasies.

“Me neither. Although I have some _ideas_.”

Marcus tilts his head back to look at you, that devastating grin again. “Ideas, huh?”

“Yeah.” You find yourself smiling back, foolishly.

“I’ve got some ideas too. I did think the poem I picked was very, uh, _inspirational_.”

He turns and presses his face into the heavy material, mouthing hotly over the length of you, making the fabric damp. You feel your cock judder with delight against the plump press of his lips, even through the thick serge of your school trousers. You have to bite down on your lip hard to stop embarrassing sounds coming out. You hear other sounds then, the not-so-distant sounds of twigs snapping underfoot and boys’ laughter.

“Uh, Marcus?”

“Yeah?” he looks up from where he had been breathing hot air hard against the very tip of your dick, warming it inside its cloth prison, his green eyes sleepy and distracted with desire.

“Maybe we should…I mean, I don’t want to stop you now that you… I just mean,…maybe we should wait for a time when we can be, you know, _uninterrupted_.”

You curse yourself for the wariness that comes into his hazy eyes at your words. He crooks his head, as if hearing the sounds of the others leaving the cave for the first time, then scrambles clumsily to his feet, wincing as he puts weight back on his bad leg. He takes a step back from you, and you reach out despite yourself, grab at his hand, hold it. To your relief, he curls his broad fingers around your tapered ones.

“I don’t think there’s every going to be a time when we can be uninterrupted,” he says, wistfully.

“There must be,” you tug on his hand, trying unsuccessfully to draw him closer to you again. “Um… Exeat?”

“Oh, I normally go to Lucas’ for exeat weekends,” Marcus says, “it’ a bit far to my Uncle’s, doesn’t seem worth it. I think… it would be strange if I told him I wanted to come to Calleva. Sorry.”

“No, I mean, we could stay _here_ for Exeat. The House is always basically empty. Nearly everyone goes home. In the Hundred I used to practically have the run of the place.”

Marcus winces in sympathy at your remembered loneliness. “I wish we were friends back then.”

“We’re friends now.”

“Mmmmm,” he lets his thumb slide over the tender skin on the inside of your wrist, which does nothing to ease the throbbing ache in your cock. “Well, that certainly sounds like a plan. I’ll tell Lucas I need to study.” He smiles wryly. “Which is true, incidentally.”

“I can help you with that. I mean, if you’d like me to.”

“Mmmm,” Marcus says again. “Yeah. I’m sure we can spend the weekend _helping each other out_.” And he runs the backs of his knuckles lightly up your dick again before turning to join the others, leaving you squirming with a want so ragged and intense, it’s a couple of minutes before you’re even able to walk out of the woods.

 

_Marcus_

The two weeks between Dead Poets’ and Exeat seem to crawl by. Being around Esca, but not being able to be _with_ Esca, is like some especially exquisite form of torture. There’s some breathless kissing in corridors between times, always barbed with the threat of discovery, hearts in your mouths, tongues in each others; but nothing more. There seems to be a tacit understanding that you both want this to be _special_ , not just some snatched moment in a dormitory after supper, or up on the roof in the middle of the night. It’s killing you though. You reach the point where it almost seems more normal than not to have an erection. Your only consolation is that Esca is your match in this, as in all things, that you can be sure his desire is twinned with yours, just as strong, just as urgent. He leans back in his chair during English class, stretching his legs out underneath the cover of the desk, and when he’s sure he has your attention, he raises the hem of his shirt just slightly, letting you see the damp pink tip of his cock, hard and waiting, tucked against the waistband of his trousers. You can’t help yourself, you let out a quiet moan of frustration, letting your head bang forward against your own desk, earning yourself a wry smile from Esca.

“Aquila!” snaps Mr Minia, “I know Thomas Hardy can be heavy going at times, but he hardly merits attempts at achieving loss of consciousness. In addition, you would find his work considerably easier if you actually paid attention. Now sit up straight, boy!”

You sit up, but it doesn’t help with your attention. All you can think about is Esca’s pale, creamy skin; the tangy scent of it; how he looks all naked and hard and shivering in the showers after rugby; how he will look when that is all spread out before you, in private, where you’re allowed to look your fill. You think _I want to eat your skin like a whole almond_. You think _As I would free the white almond from the green husk / So would I strip your trappings off / Beloved_. You suppose that at least your mind is on Literature.

 

It’s not that you don’t worry about the things that worried you before, the wrongness of it, what everyone would say and think. Your Uncle. Your Father. The other boys. What future you could possible have with him. But you find you just… _don’t mind as much_. Besides, as Esca points out to you when Placidus makes one of his snide comments, it’s not like any of _their_ fathers every saw active service, so who are they to talk to you about bravery, or cowardice, or shame? Mostly you try not to think about it at all. Just think about Esca. Plus, there’s a small part of you that feels almost smug. You sit with Quinton and Claude at tea as they’re having another desperate discussion about whether they’ll be able to hitch hike into town during Exeat, and whether there’ll be any girls, and whether they’ll even look at them or be too busy with their boyfriends from the local comp, and you think: _I’m going to get laid this weekend. When you come back on Sunday night you’ll all be virgins still, and I’ll be… I’ll be something else_. It’s terrifying and glorious in equal measure.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to stay and keep you company?” Lucas offers on Thursday night as you sit on your bed reading whilst he packs. “It might be fun. Being here all by ourselves.”

“NO!” you practically shout. Then: “I mean, I _really_ need to study, and I’m much better at that kind of thing on my own.”

“OK, OK,” Lucas says. Then he smiles at you good naturedly. “When did you get to be such a boffin? Well, don’t blame me when you’re dead of boredom come Sunday night.”

You just shake your head, not trusting yourself to speak in case you start grinning.

 

As it turns out, thanks to stragglers whose parents got caught in traffic, an essay you have to get finished, and Sassticca making you come out to the games pitches and go over team formations for next year on Saturday morning, you don’t get to be alone with Esca, in private, ‘til Saturday evening, when he knocks on the door to your dorm.

“Come in.”

He hesitates on the threshold.

“Do you think we should wait? Shall I come back at midnight?”

“I think it will be fine. Matron’s probably gone to the pub with the rest of the house staff.”

There’s still a risk that she might decide to check the corridor unannounced upon her return later that night, but the bigger risk is that you’re going to actually expire with want if you don’t get your hands on Esca soon.

“Come here,” you say, patting the scratchy blanket beside you on the top of your narrow bed.

Esca comes.

 

[Part VII](http://pouxin.livejournal.com/4123.html)  
_______________________________________________________________

**Poetry Credits: Part VI**

**Dead Poets’ Society Sixth Meeting**

Lucas Dacian: ‘ _A Clear Midnight’_ by Walt Whitman, 1881  
Steven Placidus: ‘ _Eating Poetry_ ’ by Mark Strand, 1968  
Esca MacCunoval: _’Hate blows a bubble of despair_ ’ by e e cummings, 1954  
Liathan Prince: From T. S. Eliot’s ‘ _The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock_ ’, 1915  
Claude Hieron: From Alfred Douglas ‘ _Two Loves_ ’, 1894  
Quinton Hilary: ‘ _Acquainted With The Night_ ’ by Robert Frost, 1928  
John ‘Guernsey’ Hunter: _’Putting In The Seed’_ by Robert Frost, 1920  
Marcus Aquila: ‘ _Pull My Daisy_ ’ by Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady (although written in the late 1940s, not published til 1971)  
Doug Cheef: _’Love Sonnet XI_ ’ by Pablo Neruda, 1924 (translated from the Spanish by Stephen Tapscott)


	7. Odi et Amo (7/7) | Esca/Marcus | NC-17

**Title** : Odi et Amo  
 **Rating** : NC-17  
 **Pairing** : Esca/Marcus  
 **Summary** : Esca and Marcus are at an all boys boarding school in the UK in the 1970s. They hate each other, until they both become members of the newly formed Dead Poets' Society... Adolescent ardor follows.  
 **Word count** : ~57k  
 **Warnings** : Explicit sex; language; (some) homophobic hate speech; reference to self harm; some (brief) violence

 

_Esca_

You sit beside Marcus on the bed, and you kiss. It’s a little awkward at first. The whole thing feels kind of forced, unnatural: you’ve decided you are going to kiss so now you are kissing. It lacks the breathless spontaneity of most of your earlier kisses. The boarding house is eerily quiet, which means you can hear every creak of the bed, every exhalation of breath, every wet click and slide of your mouths. You feel self consciousness curling like a scratchy rug along your shoulders. 

“Shall we turn out the light?” Marcus asks. “In case anyone comes?”

“Sure.” You feel disappointment sink in your belly. You want to _see_ Marcus, all golden and glorious. Fortunately it’s a fine night, and Marcus hasn’t drawn the old blackout curtains, so the room is still filled with a cool silvery glow. And without the harsh buzz of the overhead light, the mood seems more relaxed, less contrived.

You kiss some more before you pull away.

“Um… do you want to… shall we take our shirts off?” you mumble, horrified by the blush you can feel starting in your neck. You’d thought about just, well, _doing_ it, taking off Marcus’ shirt; but then you thought about the time at Uncle Aquila’s, how Marcus had shied away from your fingers at his collar, and thought it better to ask. Now you wish you hadn’t. You sound ridiculous, gauche, stupid.

“OK.” Marcus undoes the buttons to his white school shirt slowly, then tugs it off and lets it drop on the floor. You feel your breath hitch in your throat at his beauty, the fluid lines of him; bone, muscle, skin; everything perfect. The smattering of freckles that splash over his shoulders and along his clavicle. “Now you?”

You feel nervous, and when you raise a hand to start to undo your shirt you notice it is trembling. You’ve never really been that concerned about your body. It serves its function. You’re not a vain person, or a particularly self-conscious person. Being naked in the showers in front of the other boys never bothered you, even when you were obviously shorter and skinnier than most of them and they would start up with all the ‘runt’ shit. But suddenly you feel nervous about taking off your shirt in front of Marcus, _for_ Marcus. He is so broad and strong, thick armed and wide chested, so _masculine_. You feel slight, narrow, inconsequential. You undo the buttons quickly before your courage fails you, hoping Marcus won’t notice the shaking. You don’t look into his eyes.

“Mm,” Marcus makes a small noise of approval, and runs the tips of his wide fingers down your chest, from sternum to navel, letting them loiter and swirl in your belly button. This time when he kisses you, you have no room for awkwardness, just the delicious shock of Marcus’ bare skin pressed flush to your skin. There’s just _so much_ of it. You squeeze him against you urgently, tongue thrusting up into his mouth, hands greedily sliding over his back. He falls backwards against the headboard, toppling you down with him, and you almost burrow into him, skin, skin, skin, skin. You snake your hand down over the small of his back, having to pull hard where it’s trapped between Marcus and the bed, and slip it under the waistband of his trousers; give an experimental squeeze of his arse.

“Ha,” Marcus says pulling away.

“What?” you ask warily, drawing back, worried you’ve gone too far, scared him somehow.

“No, nothing like that,” he says quickly, as if sensing you thoughts, and smiles slightly sheepishly. “Just…all my grand plans. All the things I said we’d do to each other. And I already feel like I’m just about ready to…you know…just from being pressed against your skin like this. And kissing.”

“Me too.” You capture his lips with your own again, biting at their soft lushness, running your hands lightly up his sides. Marcus’ hands are on your face, warm and possessive. You work a hand down the front of his trousers, manage to stroke two of your fingers against the fat head of his cock, coating it with its own slipperiness. Marcus makes a whimpering sighing sound into your mouth that makes your stomach swoop low with want.

“Let’s just take these off,” you murmur, fumbling with his fly buttons, and managing to push his trousers and briefs down enough to pull his penis free. He kisses you hard as you stroke your hand over him.

“Oh,” he says quietly. He sounds broken.

You draw back to look at him in the moonlight, just feathering your fingers over his prick, little moth-touches, powdery and delicate. Marcus’ eyes practically roll back in his head. You drop your head to mouth along the line of his throat, fluttering your hand around him as you try and push the rest of his trousers down with your foot.

Marcus tries to stop you, lifting his knee to impede your progress.

“Hang on a minute, Esca. Just give me a sec…,” he mutters urgently.

You suck at his neck; ghost the tip of one finger over the damp little mouth at the head of his cock.

“Oh. Fuck. I’m going to come,” Marcus hisses desperately, and then he arches up into your hand, head flung back into the pillow, hands bunched into the sheets at his sides. You feel the warm spurt of his jizz splash against your naked stomach, and the answering pull in your own balls. You kiss along his lightly stubbled jaw, lip at his earlobe, waiting for his breathing to become more even again, less ragged.

“Well, that was embarrassing,” he pants.

“Nah, not embarrassing.” You lick at the underside of his chin. “Although I can’t believe that someone who’s built like such a brick shit house likes being touched like such a delicate flower.”

Marcus gives a raspy laugh. “Well, I can’t believe someone who’s built like such a delicate flower likes being touched like the rope in a tug-of-war competition.”

“I _am not_ built like a delicate flower!” you protest.

“Fine, if you say so,” Marcus says, grinning at your lazily. You take advantage of his post-orgasmic languor to brace your arm across his throat, using your knee to pin his hip to bed.

“Take it back!”

Marcus looks at you, eyes big and solemn. “Fine,” he says slowly, “I take… death before dishonour!” And he flips you off him with a savage arch of his torso, then you are both trying frantically not to fall off the bed, laughing, pinning each other. Marcus ends up beneath you again, despite being bigger and heavier, and you give him a victorious smile.

“You have an unfair advantage, I’m practically hamstrung,” he laughs, indicating his briefs which are still bunched around his thighs.

“Well, that can be easily remedied.” You scoot down the bed, and finish pulling his trousers and pants off. Your eyes stray to the scar, silvery pink and tusk-pale in the moonlight, skin as tender there as a baby’s, the wasted muscle around it. You feel him stiffen a little, almost imperceptibly. Then you see other, smaller, knots and scars around it high up on his thigh, places where Marcus has dug his fingers in, hard, or perhaps taken a small blade or a needle to it, reopened parts of the wound. Tiny scars within the scar that someone would only notice if they looked very closely. You lift your head and look up at him carefully, trying to keep your face neutral, raising your eyebrows in an unspoken question. Marcus scrunches his face up, scratches at his neck awkwardly.

“I haven’t done anything like that for a while,” he says quietly. “Not since… not since we became friends. I know it’s stupid.”

“But you always seemed so happy,” you blurt in surprise, although as soon as the words leave your mouth you could bite your own tongue for how foolish they sound.

“Yeah. Well.” Marcus looks away, sidelong, biting at the side of his mouth.

You move down the bed and kiss at his scar, little butterfly kisses, wanting to show him that you want all of him… _love_ all of him. Wanting to try and make everything better for him, undo every hurt. He tries to wiggle away from you at first, mutters, “Esca, don’t”, but then stills, calms. You think of Vipsania, all taut, anxious muscle between your thighs, then how you relaxed into each other. You think how patient Marcus was with you then, teaching you to ride. You hear his breathing become more regular, feel the corded tendons of his leg soften under your tongue. You want to pat at his flanks, _good boy_. You let your fingers trail your lips, soothing, letting them tell Marcus everything you cannot find the words to say. You mean only to offer your comfort, but after a while Marcus’ cock – still sticky from his earlier orgasm – gives a renewed twitch of interest against his thigh. You smirk, prickle the back of your nails down it, watching it start to fill and thicken.

“Why don’t we do you before we do me again?” Marcus sounds amused. He hooks his large hands under your armpits and heaves you back up the bed, nuzzling his face up into yours before rolling you over. For a second his weight on top of you seems too much, stifling, a little flare of panic igniting in your chest. But then his hands are at your fly, and you gasp as Marcus’ thick fingers close round your erection. He pulls hard, just like you taught him, almost savagely stripping the sheath back from the head as he uses his other hand to pull your own briefs down as far as he can reach. You shut your eyes for a while, lost in the razor sharp snag of the sensation, and when you open them you see Marcus is looking down at your prick in his hand with interest.

“Your cock is a lot… It’s really different from mine,” he slows his movements, gives it a long, sloppy tug. “It’s…daintier.”

“Dainty? I’m not sure I like that word. It sounds like a euphemism for small,” you reply, voice slightly uneven.

“No, no – not like that. Just. You know. It’s so perfect and… it’s delicious.” Marcus is still staring at your dick, ensnared in the warm trap of his hand.

“Delicious, hm?” you prompt.

“You know I… I’ve often thought about…putting it in my mouth.”

A hundred images flash through your head, lipstick smeared all around Marcus’ mouth in the firelight, his pretty lips, such pretty lips, you always thought so, right from Foundation, when you hated him, still thought about sliding your cock into that privileged pout. You feel your prick leap in his grasp.

“Yeah?” you gasp.

“I thought about it – a lot. I spent a whole afternoon in my Uncle’s hayloft wanking myself off ‘til I was raw, just thinking about putting my mouth all over your cock.”

“Jesus. Marcus.” The unexpectedness of it, the dirty words from the perfect mouth, is unbearably erotic, makes you feel dangerously close.

“Do you want me to do it? To suck it?”

“YES! I mean, if you want to?” you add quickly, still not really sure you can believe that this is happening, that this is real.

“Of course I want to. I just told you I’ve _fantasized_ about it.” He wriggles down the bed until his face is level with your groin, then looks up at you. “I might not be very good though. You’re not allowed to call me ‘vanilla’.”

“Marcus, I’m sorry, that was an idiotic thing to say I – ha!” You exhale suddenly, cut off by the warm, wet closing of Marcus’ lips around the head of your prick. It doesn’t even feel like what you imagined, what you imagined couldn’t come close. It feels so good it makes you feel winded, you have to concentrate to remember to breathe. Marcus pulls off far too soon, leaving your cock weeping in his wake. “Is that OK?”

You make a sort of inarticulate pssting sound of agreement, not capable of speaking whole words. Fortunately Marcus seems to understand, because then his mouth is on you again, sucking you hard into him. You try to keep your eyes open, you want to see, you want to see those plump lips of your midnight imaginings circling around your cock, but you can’t, they snap shut despite your best efforts, and stay obstinately closed as you feel the familiar urgent tightening in your balls.

“N’uh, Marcus…” you groan. “I’m really close. It’s…um….”

But he just draws you in deeper, tighter, hotter until you feel like you’re falling into the middle of a glittering white star, ears ringing with a roaring silence. You’re dimly aware of Marcus kissing his way back up your body, then draping a strong arm around your waist and pulling you into him. He kisses the back of your neck. “OK?”

“I can absolutely promise you there was nothing remotely vanilla about that.” You reach round lazily to rub at his cock, only to find it soft and spent against the thickness of his thigh.

“Oh yeah,” Marcus mumbles, “that sort of took care of itself while I was sucking you. More embarrassment.”

You smile against the pillow. “It’s hardly like I went on all night.”

Marcus makes a drowsy murmuring of assent, and pulls you in tighter to him, tucking his knees up under yours, belly snug to your back. You can’t believe how incredible it feels, all of Marcus, the entire naked length of him, pressed up against all of you. You curl into him, luxuriating in the sensation, wanting to be able to remember every exact detail of it forever. For all those nights you’re cold and alone in your own bed.

“You know this is just going to make it twice as hard from now on,” you said, unable to keep a trace of misery out of your tone.

“What is?”

“This. Knowing what’s it like is going to make it even harder to have to be around each other and not be able to…you know, _do_ anything. Not being able to touch you, or kiss you.”

“Cuddle?” Marcus asks, and you feel a low rumble of laughter in his chest, against your back.

“Cuddle. Yep, definitely going to miss the cuddling,” then so as not to sound too sappy you add, “also, you know, not being able to have you suck me off.”

“Well, I wouldn’t worry about that,” Marcus sounds relaxed, sleepy. “You can come stay with me in the summer. However long you like. All holiday. Weeks. We can go up into the hayloft _every day_. My uncle won’t notice. We can be gone for _hours_.”

“Hours, huh? That’s enough time for you to come, what? Like, 36 times?”

“Oh, shut up,” Marcus says good naturedly, and bumps his head into the back of your neck. “Mmmm. You smell nice.”

You can still feel the cooling sweat drying along your hairline. “Doubtful.”

“Mmmm. Nice.” Marcus’ voice has turned thick and drowsy, you can tell he is almost asleep. You take the opportunity to roll over inside the drape of his arms, and prop yourself up on your elbows to examine him. He is so beautiful it makes your throat hurt like you’re about to start crying, even when you have him, you still feel desperate for him, like nothing could ever be enough. You want to write poems for him. You can feel all the words you have for him humming under your skin.

“ _Glory be to God for dappled things_ ,” you whisper, taking in the uneven cascade of Marcus’ freckles.

“Mm?”

“ _Whatever is fickle, freckled_ ,” you murmur, trailing your hands in gauzey circles over the freckled flesh of Marcus’ shoulders. “ _With swift_ ,” and you whisk your hand, fast, over his shoulder and along the skin of his back, “ _slow_ ;” moving back the same away, but this time languorous, luxuriating in the silky glide of his skin, “ _sweet_ ,” and you press your tongue to the top of Marcus’ spine and lick, gently, “ _sour_ ;” snuffling your face into the soft tuft of fluff at Marcus’ armpit, making him exhale sharply with amused surprise, “ _adazzle_ ,” pulling him over to lie on his back in the moonlight, fingers gently dabbing where the light catches, “ _dim_ ,” and now down to the dark thatch of his pubic hair, just visible above the edges of the rucked sheet.

Marcus looks up at you, definitely awake again now. “That’s nice, what’s that?”

“Gerard Manley Hopkins. You can have some more if you like?”

Marcus smiles at you cheekily. “I reckon I could handle some more.”

You tug the sheet down lower, revealing his cock, already half hard again.

“So it would seem.” You run a hand lightly over his belly, watching his prick nod its head as if in agreement, start to swell and stiffen. Then you shift down in the bed, pinching it gently between two fingers, holding it away from the juncture of his thighs. “Do you want poetry, or do you want me to try something else with my mouth?”

Marcus’ eyes have gone very dark. “Something else.”

You bend your neck, brush your lips, feathery dry, over the sides of his cock, before opening your mouth and tonguing at the vein that snakes up towards the head. Marcus inhales sharply, breath hissing in his throat, and curls his hands into the sheets. You open your mouth wide, sucking in a long cool breath along his rigid length, before sealing your lips around him and running your tongue around the tip.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he says gently, every word little more than a gasp of inhaled air, scrunching his eyes closed and pulling at the bed linen. “God, that’s good.”

You suck it down into your throat and he bucks violently.

“Esca –“ he sounds like he’s in pain. His cock is red and plumy with need, and when you pull off it smacks wetly against the soft curve of his belly. You look up at him speculatively, wait for him to open his eyes in the half light.

“Do you want to try… I want to…do you want to…?”

“OK.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Shall I… to you….?”

Marcus nods mutely, his expression unreadable. You feel a mix of excitement and relief and awe. The idea of letting someone inside you like that seems suddenly too much, literally as well as metaphorically, and you can’t quite believe Marcus would let you do it.

“You can do it to me too. Afterward,” you offer, not sure you could actually go through with it. But you think you probably could. For Marcus. Someone who is already in every way inside you.

 

_Marcus_

Esca presses a few more hot kisses against the side of your cock.

“I don’t know…what to do,” he says, propped on his elbows between your thighs, looking up at you with those storm-coloured eyes.

“Well, _I_ don’t know what to do.”

Esca runs the tips of his fingers very lightly over your hole, making you shiver.

“It looks…tiny.” Esca sounds uncertain.

“Mmmm.” Your stomach gives a small pull of alarm.

Esca studies you between your legs for a little while, fingers drifting over you, gentle, gentle. Then he looks up at you almost sheepishly, and you swear to God he actually blushes – _blushes_ – Esca.

“You know, with girls, well… You know… that you….um…with your mouth…to…um…get them ready….”

“Oh, you mean…” and you hold the V of your fingers up to your mouth and lick in-between them.

“Yeah. Do you think it’s the same?” Esca asks doubtfully.

“Esca – are you asking for permission to _lick my ass_?” you tease.

“Oh, fuck off,” Esca says without rancour, his eyes still intent on you, heavy lidded and deep.

“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never done that with a girl.”

“Me neither, surprisingly enough.”

“I don’t even know anyone who has. But I don’t think it’s the same though. Physiologically. I don’t think it, you know, lubricates itself like that.”

“We could try?”

“Sure.” Because suddenly the thought of Esca putting his tongue on you, there, the most secret of places is unbearably erotic.

You feel Esca’s cool fingers on the skin high inside your thighs, skin that never gets touched, soft as sifted flour under the dark hairs that grow there. He holds you open, a strange feeling, embarrassing, wonderful, and then you feel the tip of his tongue flick lightly against your entrance. You jerk back and let out a small snort of laughter.

“Ha!”

“Is that OK?” Esca asks, sounding worried. Fierce little Esca, sharp like a wolf, now gentle and kitten-soft between your thighs.

“Yes, it’s just… a bit ticklish.”

“Maybe if I do it harder?”

His tongue comes back again, blunt this time instead of pointed, and works against you in long, hard laps.

“Mmm,” you make a surprised hum of contentment before you can stop yourself. Encouraged, Esca spears the point of his tongue up inside you, faster, harder. It’s like being body-slammed by a wall of feeling. In fact, it’s almost too much, like being tickled and tickled until you can’t breathe; or the physical therapy you used to have on your leg, pleasure-pain, teasing. At the same time you feel you’re striving towards something, some feeling, that you can’t find. Sometimes you brush past it in the dark, but when you turn to grab it, to pull it to you and ride it out, it is gone, disappeared into the mists of sensation, smoke and mirrors. It taunts you with its closeness, the promise of ecstasy, then…nothing…just…mmmm. Uh. It still feels pretty amazing. It still feels…close.

You can feel Esca’s tongue working deeper, all wet and warm, magnetic, drawing all your nerve endings to it like iron filings, and you part your thighs further, giving him more access, more, more, more. Then Esca slides the tip of a finger in and you feel everything clench up in a sharp o of surprise at the intrusion. You let a small snort of air escape you.

“Sorry,” Esca says, quickly, withdrawing.

“No, it’s OK. It was just…surprising.”

Esca props himself on one elbow and looks up at you, the pale points of his face making your heart ache.

“Maybe we need something else. Do you have any Vaseline?”

“Yeah, yeah.” You half roll over and pull open your bedside drawer, fingers fumbling in their haste to find the little tin. “Here you go.”

“OK.” Esca unscrews the lid and runs his fingers, delicately, around the jelly inside. Everything he does is so graceful. You could just watch him moving forever. Then he gently nudges your thighs apart with his shoulders, and you feel the greasy slide of his fingers entering you, first one, then, after a while, a second.

“It’s making me really hard, watching you, like this. I didn’t think it would, but it’s… um…,” Esca’s voice sounds scratchy, and his eyes are huge, fixed on his fingers, your opening. “It’s actually beautiful.” He looks up at you then, askance, hair wild, a half smile on his face, half embarrassed, half joking. “You’re beautiful.”

He twists and scissors his fingers inside you.

“How does it feel?”

“OK.”

Esca looks slightly crestfallen.

“Good,” you lie, quickly. It actually just feels…full, mainly. And also kind of sore. It feels like something that shouldn’t be there, like when you stuff cotton wool up your nose to stop a bleed after rugby. But it doesn’t _hurt_ , which is what you’d been most afraid of. Esca half crawls up your body to kiss you, keeping the pump of his fingers steady. You kiss him back hungrily. You just need to focus on this, how good Esca’s skin feels, cool and silky against your heated chest; the complicated and delicate taste of his mouth. Normally you love Esca’s cock, the heat and weight of it when it’s pressed against you, the mix of its hard length and soft tip, the fact that _you_ made it like that: hard, big, quivering. But now you try not to think about it. Even though it’s slightly smaller than yours, it still feels huge, digging in to your hip. You kiss Esca savagely, desperately. He pulls away from you, your skin making a damp sucking sound as you separate.

“Do you think…you’re ready?” His eyes are huge and dark, mystic caves of secrets and longing. You nod quickly, not trusting yourself to speak.

Esca holds his dick firmly at the base, and presses it against your entrance. You bury your face into the wonderful smell of his neck, gritting your teeth; but still, you feel your stomach sag and the blood start to flood away from your cock, as if retreating in terror. Esca pauses in what he is doing.

“Marcus?”

“Mmmm,” you reply into his neck.

“Marcus. What’s wrong?”

He curls one hand up to cup at your softening prick.

“I just… I don’t know. Nervous. Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. _I’m_ sorry.”

Esca peppers your face gently with kisses, your nose, your cheekbones, the petal soft wrinkles of your eyelids. Then he slides back down your body again, making you sigh a little from the loss of his lips on yours, until you feel him suck you into the damp heat of his mouth. He glides over you for a while, a warm wet wash of pleasure along your eager cock, and then his fingers are back, working at you. Then his lips on your belly, your neck, your earlobes.

“I fancy you so much,” he says breathlessly, slightly incongruously, but it makes your stomach swoop with delighted desire. You turn your face, lick at his mouth. Feel the nudge of his erection at your opening again. Esca kisses you, pushes. You feel yourself give surprisingly quickly, the clench and pull of you sucking Esca in like a sharp gasp of warm air. But still. The shocking discomfort of it is enough to bring tears to your eyes. You breathe out hard, push your face back in to the comfort of Esca’s neck, the ends of his hair tickling your forehead. Esca pushes some more. It’s not the hard, unrelenting pain of your leg cramps, that wake you in the night, making you bite at your pillow in an effort to stop yourself shouting out and disturbing Lucas; more like the steady gnaw of a pain that must be endured, the slow acquiesce of the ‘flu jab or pulling out a shard of glass from the roughened pad of your foot. You bite down on your lip, hard; look up at Esca. He almost looks like he’s in more pain than you, his face taut with effort and concentration. It feels so impossibly tight you wonder if it does hurt him.

“Does it hurt?”

“No,” he says, grimacing, rigid. “No. It’s um… it’s…. I’m trying not to…”

A little jerk to his hips, working his cock deeper inside you, and you can’t help yourself, you twist away from him with a hiss of discomfort. Esca stills instantly, puts one hand on your face.

“Sorry. I want to… I want you. So much.” He kisses you softly, gently, everything else still except for his magical tongue.

“I want you too. I do. Don’t stop.”

“I want it to be good for you. You’re… I….you know…”

“I know.”

He kisses you long and wet and messy, and as he’s kissing you his dick kind of works itself the whole way in, ‘til his balls are flush against your ass, and you’ve barely noticed. Just the smell of him, the feel of his mouth trembling against yours, his eyes softer than you’ve ever seen them, Esca. Then his hips stutter, and it’s not so bad. Actually, now the initial sting has died away, it doesn’t really hurt anymore.

“You can move now, it’s OK,” you whisper against his mouth.

He experimentally circles his hips, gentle. Then again. Then more kissing.

“I don’t want to hurt you Marcus,” he says, pulling back from you a little, looking tenderly into your eyes. Another gentle thrust.

“It’s fine!” you say, louder than you intended. And you feel almost angry – at him, at you. You thought this would be something incredible, but it’s just… Well, it’s uncomfortable. It’s not like the desperate joy you feel when Esca’s hands or mouth are on you, or even when you have him in your arms, fully clothed, just kissing. It’s… But surely it must be good, or why would men do this to each other? You can feel your cock start to wilt again where it’s trapped between your two stomachs. You bite against Esca’s pale shoulder in frustration, and he twists his hips in surprise, thrusts harder, harder.

Then Esca’s length slides against some previously secret spot inside you and it’s like a box of fireworks going off inside your belly. Your nerves sing with the joy of it, _yes, that’s it, that’s it, that’s it_. The sensation you have been chasing all evening suddenly rounds on you, runs joyful into your nets, thrusts its sharp antlers right into your heart. Fuck. You feel yourself gasp and arch up hard, totally involuntarily.

“Esca….God…”

Esca goes stock still, face pale.

“Shit, shit, have I hurt you, is it bad? I’ll stop, I’ll stop.”

“NO! For Christ’s sake, don’t stop. It’s…um…it’s like….amazing. Just – move!”

“Really?” Esca looks surprised.

“Yes!”

He kisses the side of your face, circling gently.

“No, like before. Up a bit. Huh!”

You feel the air knocked out of you as he finds that place again, the place that belongs to the two of you, the place that has been waiting for him, just for him, all your life.

 

_Esca_

You push into Marcus again and feel his cock surge against your stomach. You’re not really sure how you’re doing it, it doesn’t _feel_ any different from what you were doing before, but you chew on your lip, hard, try and concentrate on following his directions, not on how amazing the hot, tight clench of Marcus around you feels, or the dangerous pulling and tickling sensation between your balls and your dick. Marcus’ eyes are shut, lashes sooty against the broad swipe of each cheekbone. You bend your head down to lick at his face again. _I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body / the sovereign nose of your arrogant face / I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes._

“Mmm, upwards again, up,” Marcus mumbles, and then makes that throaty, almost purring sigh. If he makes those sounds one more time it will be your undoing. You can’t believe that you’re actually inside him, Marcus, _your_ Marcus, and you can’t believe you’re able to make him enjoy it.

“Esca,” Marcus gasps, quietly, and you feel one large hand cup around your arse, pushing you deeper inside him. “Oh. _Esca_.”

“Marcus!”

You can’t hold it back any longer, you come helplessly, it feels like your soul is surging out of you in hot gushes, into Marcus’ impossibly tight heat. It leaves you breathless, boneless, destroyed. You let your head sink onto Marcus’ collarbone, nosing at the sweat you find there, dizzy, exhausted, Marcus’ hands rubbing in lazy circles on your back. You laugh into his skin, breathlessly.

“Jesus!”

“Mmmm,” Marcus agrees, and you become aware that he is still pressing against you, trying to rub his cock against your belly. You half roll off him, looping one hand down and pulling on him languidly, gently. Just one, two, three soft tugs, a flick of your fingers against the damp little opening at his tip, then one more hard stroke and he is coming, jetting in your hand, splattering across both your necks and chests. Marcus groans, and then laughs too.

“ _Well_ …”

“Yeah. I know.”

You wipe yourselves down with the scratchy school-issue sheet, then curl up round each other again, and even though you think you’ll never be able to fall asleep like this, too hot and sticky being this close to someone, you do.

 

When you wake up the bright pale light of morning is flooding the room through the open curtains, and your heart gives a lurch of panic as you fumble on the bedside table for Marcus’ watch. Marcus himself is pressed flush against the wall alongside the narrow single bed, his arse butted out against your side. You take a moment to enjoy the feeling.

“Marcus, Marcus.”

“Mmmm?” he mumbles sleepily.

“I should get up. Go back to my own dorm.”

“What’s the time?”

“Half past eight.”

“How long have we got? Before breakfast? Before matron comes to find us?”

“I think about twenty minutes.”

Marcus rolls over to face you, pulling you in to the warm circle of his thick arms and smiling at you drowsily.

“I want you to do it again.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. It might be ages before we can… you know…”

“Do you think twenty minutes is enough?”

Marcus raises his eyebrows at you in amusement.

OK, OK,” you concede. You kiss, mouths stale with sleep, but still delicious. You stroke at the flute of Marcus’ hip, the knell of his lower back, then start to move on top of him.

“Try it this way, it might be easier,” Marcus breathes, and rolls on to his belly. “Do all the stuff you did before.” he mumbles into the pillow, “I think I might like it better now”.

You run your hands over the high, fine globes of his buttocks, and then you pull them apart slightly and lick at him. You can taste yourself there, acrid and sour, slightly stale. It’s actually kind of disgusting, but for whatever reason your prick doesn’t agree with you, pulsing with desire with each lap, the musk of you and Marcus strong in your nostrils, sending lust like a flash flood washing violently over each of your nerve endings. This time your curve your fingers as you push them inside him, slippery with Vaseline, searching for whatever place it was you found with your cock, feeling strangely proud when Marcus lets out a strangled gasp and flexes beneath you.

“What even _is_ that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t touch it too much, it’s… it’s like insanely sensitive. It’s really on the edge.”

“OK,” you kiss and lick at him some more.

“I think… I’m ready, so you should…”

You pause, smirk in the morning sunlight. “I should what?”

“You know.”

“What?”

“I want you to fuck me.”

You wish you hadn’t made him say it now, the words causing your balls to pull up so high and tight it almost hurts. You crawl up Marcus on the bed, kissing at the freckles that splatter their way across his broad brown shoulders, licking at the knots of his spine. You feel the nudge of your cock against Marcus’ hole, and you hardly even need to use your hand to guide it, this time you slide in easily. Although it looked just the same, the ring of muscle is more malleable than before, and you can feel the silky lick of your own residue easing your passage. It feels incredible. It was difficult to enjoy it last time, what with Marcus lying there so stiff and uncomfortable, but this time it’s completely different, Marcus immediately sighing and sifting with pleasure, moving against you, wriggling like an eel in your arms. You keep your mouth on the hot skin at the nape of his neck, where he smells most strongly of himself, concentrating on following his stream of directions: _this way, here, move up a bit, more like this._

Then eventually he rears up slightly on to his hands and knees, and you grasp tightly to his hips to stop yourself being unseated.

“Now, now, Esca, put your hand on me,” he says throatily, and you reach round to find his prick. You thrill to feel how hard he is, heavy cock clinging to the curve of his belly, pulsing to the rhythm of your thrusts inside him, throbbing into your hand.

“You’re really hard!” You can’t keep the surprise out of your voice.

Marcus half laughs, half grunts. “Yeah, well, I told you it was good once you learn how to enjoy it.”

“Maybe I’m just really good at it.” You kiss his back again whilst you strip him lazily with your right hand, slow and easy, just how he likes it.

Marcus tries to snort, but it comes out more like a gasp. “Maybe – huh. Or maybe… um…. uh… Oh fuck, _Esca_.”

And this time he comes before you and you feel pride blooming like a hot poppy on your breast.

 

There isn’t much time for lying together afterwards, although it makes you feel a bit sick to have to leave Marcus’ warm bed, his warm arms, his warm eyes. You linger for as long as you can, lying on your belly alongside him, looking at him speculatively. You still feel anxious about it, but curiosity, _desire_ , is stronger.

“So, next time you do this to me?”

Marcus laughs. “I don’t know. I wouldn’t want to hurt you.”

“I didn’t hurt you.”

“You did a bit. Anyway, I’m _bigger_.”

“Oh, piss off,” you say, pushing at his shoulder. Then, as the thought occurs to you, “don’t you want to do that to me?” You wriggle your arse petulantly in his direction. Marcus’ eyes go very green, like ancient forests and enchanted lakes.

“Yes. I _really_ want to do that to you, Esca.”

He tip-toes the ends of his fingers gently down the ridge of your spine, pirouetting them in the dent at the base, before slipping them along the silk soft skin inside the cleft of you arse.

“Now?” he asks.

“Marcus. Breakfast starts in, like, two minutes. Matron will be on the prowl if we’re not careful.”

“Tonight?”

Everyone’s back tonight. It’s Dead Poets’. Although I suppose you can drag me off somewhere into the woods and have your wicked way with me.”

Marcus smiles at you. “’sok. I can wait ‘til the holidays. We’ll have all the time in the world.”

You know that’s not really true, but it makes your heart feel so light and happy that you don’t care.

 

_Marcus_

After breakfast you spend a few, precious minutes curled up in the narrow strip of your bed, face down in the pillow, breathing in the thick oily smell of Esca’s hair, luxuriating in his discarded scent, caught in your messy bedding. You remember his hands on you, his mouth, the softness of his eyes. The others start arriving back around lunchtime, and you try your best to smile, shrug, join in with their idle chatter, be normal; not act like you have just experienced the single most memorable night of your life. It’s only later, changing into your pyjamas in the shower room, that you notice a dark bruise like a thumb print pressed above your collarbone. Esca. His mouth on you, drawing the blood to the surface of the skin, your heart surely following, shivering under his lips.

It’s a warm, rich night, folding round you like velvet, the air hazy with gnats, the moonlight thick like butter. Everyone is in high spirits, faces orange with joy in the bright hiss and crackle of the fire’s glow. You feel the answering fire in your bones, your heart, looking across at him, _Esca_.

“Gentlemen,” announces Prince, holding aloft the remains of Quinton’s pernod bottle, “I welcome you to the final meeting of the Dead Poets’ Society, Colloway Academy chapter, before we adjourn for the summer period.”

“A summer of drinking!” Quinton shouts.

“And shagging,” Claude adds.

“More like wanking in your case, Claude,” says Lucas, and the boys snigger. You try not to look at Esca, but you can’t help yourself; gratified when you see his eyes are as bright with anticipation as you’re sure yours are.

“Gentlemen, I give you founding member of this chapter: Mr Steven Placidus.”

Steven stands and gives that irritating cock to his head, clearing his throat before starting to read in his plumy, nasal tone.

_“There's courage involved if you want  
to become truth. There is a broken-_

_open place in a lover. Where are  
those qualities of bravery and sharp_

_compassion in this group? What's the  
use of old and frozen thought? I want_

_a howling hurt. This is not a treasury  
where gold is stored; this is for copper._

_We alchemists look for talent that  
can heat up and change. Lukewarm_

_won't do. Halfhearted holding back,  
well-enough getting by? Not here.”_

You feel a sudden rush of affection for him, despite everything; a sudden _sharp compassion_ n, for all these boys, together in this cave, tonight, your _friends_. You look at Lucas, Guernsey – their faces animated and soft in the fire glow. You think of all the poems you have read, all the other people who have felt the things you have felt, hundreds, thousands, millions of them, all over the world. You think of all the invisible strings that tie you to them, the finely spun lines of shared emotions, shared hurts, shared triumphs, shared joys. You think: _I am not alone_. You think of all the other men who have felt for other men what you feel, who have felt the weight of judgement and shame that you feel; but have gone on loving. You think of your love; _Esca_.

Claude stands to read.

_“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,_  
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,  
There is society, where none intrudes,  
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:  
I love not man the less, but Nature more,  
From these our interviews, in which I steal  
From all I may be, or have been before,  
To mingle with the Universe, and feel  
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.” 

You feel the world so keenly this evening, the hugeness of it, the smallness of it. Esca has made everything different for you, has changed everything, and tonight anything is possible. You think of Kafka: _the world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet_.

Quinton stands from where he has been sprawled across the dusty floor of the cave, having stripped himself of his shoes and socks, wriggling his pale toes against the warmth of the fire. “ _First Fig_ ,” he announces.

_“My candle burns at both ends;_  
It will not last the night;  
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends--  
It gives a lovely light.” 

“Amen to that,” calls Prince, as the others clap and whistle appreciatively. Cheef stands to read, taking a long swig of the clotted green of the pernod bottle.

_“Body, remember not only how much you were loved,_  
not only the beds you lay on,  
but also those desires that glowed openly  
in eyes that looked at you,” 

You feel Esca’s eyes on you; once the cold, unforgiving grey of storm clouds, of iron; now the warm bluish mist of a fresh summer’s morning, of topaz.

_“trembled for you in the voices—_  
only some chance obstacle frustrated them.  
Now that it’s all finally in the past,  
it seems almost as if you gave yourself  
to those desires too—how they glowed,  
remember, in eyes that looked at you,  
remember, body, how they trembled for you in those voices.” 

Lucas is reading.

_“Who is it that can tell me why my bed seems so hard and why the bedclothes will not stay upon it?_  
Wherefore has this night--and oh, how long it was!--dragged on, bringing no sleep to my eyes?  
Why are my weary limbs visited with restlessness and pain?  
If it were Love that had come to make me suffer, surely I should know it?  
Or stay, what if he slips in like a thief, what if he comes, without a word of warning, to wound me with his cruel arts?  
Yes, ’tis he!  
His slender arrows have pierced my heart, and fell Love holds it like a conquered land.  
Shall I yield me to him?  
Or shall I strive against him, and so add fuel to this sudden flame?  
Well, I will yield; burdens willingly borne do lighter weigh.  
I know that the flames will leap from the shaken torch, and die away in the one you leave alone.  
The young oxen which rebel against the yoke are more often beaten than those which willingly submit.  
And if a horse be fiery, harsh is the bit that tames him.  
When he takes to the fray with a will, he feels the curb less galling.  
And so it is with Love; for hearts that struggle and rebel against him, he is more implacable and stern than for such as willingly confess his sway. 

_Ah well, be it so, Cupid; thy prey am I.  
I am a poor captive kneeling with suppliant hands before my conqueror.”_

You can see Esca struggling not to smile as he looks at you, the slight knowing arch of one eyebrow. He slowly turns his hands over, offering you the pale underside of his wrists. You do the same, basking in the warmth of your shared joy. In moments like these, it doesn’t seem so bad that what is between you is, and has to be, a secret. It makes it better. Esca: so fierce and angry. Only you know this, that you are each other’s, that you are _his conqueror_. That he is yours.

Prince is reading; “in honour of our summer of shagging”.

_“Clothes on a chair, torn off_  
Pell-mell, in the hurry  
To be joined, and get to  
Our business. Lax, slack  
Pieces of cloth, the shed  
Husk that the world looked at.  
The constructed being  
So lightly got rid of,  
I marvel at all the years  
Spent making it. But  
Later, dressing, I see  
How we are both transformed,  
That the material  
Clingingly moulds us, and  
The voice and face alter  
As the armour fastens… 

_Locked, rocking together_  
In the animal act,  
Limbs tensed, mouthing the old  
Banned ritual words... Soon  
Memory will soften  
The harshness of loving.  
Our bodies will slip, roll  
Numbly apart, hands linked  
Perhaps, or thighs brushing  
One over another.  
These are the times we hold  
Easily in mind: not  
The immediate, hard  
And dangerous minute,  
When the self drowns, and the  
Stifled cry wrenches out. 

_The ghost of your body_  
Clings implacably to  
Mine. When you are absent,  
The air tastes of you, and  
Last night the sheets had your  
Texture. Then, when I looked  
In this morning’s mirror,  
I found a bruise which had  
Suddenly risen through  
The milky flesh, a black  
Star on the breast, surely  
Not pinned there before (I  
Count my wounds, and record  
The number). How did it  
Arrive? The ghost made it.  
I turn, hearing you laugh.” 

You finger the dark remnants of Esca’s bite on the tendons at the bottom of your neck; pulling your shirt collar to the side a little so he can see his mark on you, enjoying the way his eyes widen slightly with surprise, and how he has to look away quickly, the colour high in his cheeks.

_“Ah, how I want to make_  
Every inch of skin,  
Each muscle and organ  
Mine! My name, thought of, or  
Casually spoken,  
Must seize your joints. Any  
Hint of my presence must  
Bring dryness to the tongue,  
A cracking of knuckles.  
Let these be the signals  
That travel between us.  
Do not ask if they go  
Already from you to  
Me. The hand shakes, forming  
The words of the poem.” 

Then Esca stands to read. He looks across at you, almost nervously, before clearing his throat. Esca. So proud and strong he makes your heart ache.

_“i carry your heart with me(i carry it in_  
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere  
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done  
by only me is your doing,my darling)  
i fear  
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want  
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)  
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant  
and whatever a sun will always sing is you 

_here is the deepest secret nobody knows_  
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud  
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows  
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)  
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart 

_i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)”_

You have to bite the inside of your cheek to stop yourself from grinning at him as he sits back down on his rocky perch amid the clapping of the others. You find yourself counting down the minutes, waiting for the moment you can be out of the cave and in the woods, with Esca in your arms.

Guernsey reads:

_“Your glancing eyes, your animal tongue,_  
Your hands that flew to mine and clung  
Like birds on bough, with innocence  
Masking those young experiments  
Of flesh, persuaded me that nature  
Formed us each other’s god and creature.  
Play out then, as it should be played,  
The sweet illusion that has made  
An eldorado of your hair  
And our love an everywhere. 

_But when we cease to play explorers_  
And become settlers, clear before us  
Lies the next need – to re-define  
The boundary between yours and mine;  
Else, one stays prisoner, one goes free.  
Each to his own identity  
Grown back, shall prove our love’s expression  
Purer for this limitation.  
Love’s essence, like a poem’s, shall spring  
From the not saying everything.” 

 

 

_Esca_

You’ve missed Marcus all day; a strange, animal sort of missing, as if something important and primal has been wrenched from you. Much as you enjoy the Dead Poets’ meetings, you find yourself fidgeting impatiently on the stony ledge you’re sitting on, wanting to be with Marcus again, to have the solid, comforting bulk of him in your arms.

Marcus stands to read; that strong, warrior’s face bronze in the firelight, making your stomach quiver.

_“Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,_  
Guilty of dust and sin.  
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack  
From my first entrance in,” 

\- and here he looks at you, slow, pointed, angling his hips minutely, and suddenly all you can think of is how it felt, the hot, damp, muscular clench of Marcus around you, how he came apart in your arms, _your first entrance in._

_“Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning  
If I lack'd anything._

_'A guest,' I answer'd, 'worthy to be here:'_  
Love said, 'You shall be he.'  
'I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,  
I cannot look on Thee.’  
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,  
'Who made the eyes but I?' 

_'Truth, Lord; but I have marr'd them: let my shame_  
Go where it doth deserve.’  
'And know you not,' says Love, 'Who bore the blame?'  
'My dear, then I will serve.'  
'You must sit down,' says Love, 'and taste my meat.'  
So I did sit and eat. 

You can’t help a little huff of laughter escape you at Marcus’ daring, which you quickly disguise as a cough, bringing a hand up to cover your smirk. The others clap, smile, oblivious. They finish the last of the pernod, chat and laugh about the approaching summer holiday, jostle each other. All the time you feel like you are just acting a part, waiting for your moment with Marcus, waiting to be the real you again, the most _you_ you. The you that Marcus has made you. You catch his eye as you’re all leaving, and you know he knows what to do, know he will find you in the dark woods, will know where to come for you. You wait, letting the night settle around you like a rich, dark blanket, watching the moon.

“Hey.” Marcus’ warm presence behind you, the hot blush of his breath against your neck.

“Hey.” You turn to face him, and you look at each other for a while, just looking, no need for words, or poetry, or anything, just this, _knowing_.

Marcus smiles, takes a step closer to you, so you can feel the electricity leaping off his skin, tingling down your spine. “Did you like my poem?”

You smile back, nod. “You, uh, want to ‘taste my meat’ huh?”

“Oh yes,” Marcus whispers in your ear, voice low and easy. “I want to sit. And _eat_.”

“Am I ‘Love’ then?”

“Yes. You are love.”

And he kisses you, even though you’re only hidden in and out of the trees and one of the others could see you. He kisses you. And you are love.

**The End**

 

___________________________________________________________

**Poetry Credits: Part VII**

When Esca is admiring Marcus’ naked buffness: From Gerard Manley Hopkins’ ‘ _Pied Beauty_ ’, 1918

Sexytimes: From Pablo Neruda's _’Love Sonnet XI’_ , 1924 (translated from the Spanish by Stephen Tapscott)

**Dead Poets’ Society Seventh Meeting**

Steven Placidus: ‘ _Not Here_ ’ by Rumi, c.1207-1273; first published in English in 1949 (translated from the Arabic by Coleman Barks)  
Claude Hieron: ‘ _There is a pleasure in the pathless woods_ ’ by George Gordon, Lord Byron, 1817  
When Marcus is thinking about how Esca has changed everything: From Franz Kafka’s ‘ _Aphorisms_ ’, 1918 (translated from the German by Michael Hofmann)  
Quinton Hilary: ‘ _First Fig_ ’ by Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1920  
Doug Cheef: _’Body, Remember_ ’ by C.P. Cavafy, 1918 (translated from the Greek by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard)  
Lucas Dacian: From Ovid’s ‘ _Amores_ ’, 16BC (translated from the Latin by J. Lewis May)  
Liathan Prince: From Edward Lucie-Smith’s ‘ _Lovers_ ’, 1970  
Esca MacCunoval: ‘ _"i carry your heart with me(i carry it in"_ ’ by e e cummings, 1920  
John ‘Guernsey’ Hunter: From Cecil Day-Lewis’ ‘ _On not saying everything_ ’, 1965  
Marcus Aquila: ‘ _Love_ ’ by George Herbert, 1633


End file.
